▼"— *~mmm^^m^mmm 


LIBRARY 

OF    nil 

University  of  California. 


G  EFT  OK 


Accession  01640         Clan- 


Zhe  flftotber  of  an  Emperor 


IReprtnts  2From  f>en  ano  JBrusb 


:ss 


flDar^  fIDcBrtbur  buttle 


Secono  JEottion 


Jennings  &  p^c 

Cincinnati,  ©bio 

1901 


k 


^ 
^ 


COPYRIGHT,    1901 
"''    MARY   MoARTHUR  TUTTLE 


ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Emperor  Wilhelm,  by  W.  Carnphausen. 
By  permission  of  Berlin  Photographic 
Company,  New  York. 


91640 


THE  EMPEROR'S  TABLE. 


By  permission  of  the  Photographer. 
J.  F.  Stiehm,  Berlin. 


-^zry^K^y^n/      ^t/'i^^u^v^        T^z^^^^       /^^y^y^y/ 

y^l*f ^-^^-^^^^L-r-z^J^'-t/'  /^+-^U»-Ti^c*y&A^t^*'k^v  ^"t—^^L^^r-^t^-^L^m, 


Mju 


Gc^yuC 


Hutbor's  preface 

T^HE  permission  to  make  the  drawings  contained  in  this  collec- 
tion,  was  procured  by  my  husband,  through  the  Hon.  Nicholas 
Fish,  who  was  the  American  Secretary  of  Legation  during  the 
years  of  our  residence  in  Berlin.  Mr.  Fish  secured  from  the  Hof- 
marshallant  the  rare  opportunity  which  the  original  letter  given 
opposite  explains. 

Through  the  position  of  my  husband  as  Berlin  correspondent 
of  The  London  Daily  News  and  American  historian  of  Prussia,  I 
was  accorded  every-  facility  while  making  these  sketches  in  the 
Charlottenburg  and  Monbijou  palaces.  As  they  are  the  only 
sketches  of  the  kind  I  know  of,  the}7  will  be  of  interest,  I  trust, 
even  to  advanced  students  in  Prussian  history. 

The  excellent  sales  and  pleasant  reception  of  this  short  study 

of  the  life  of  Queen  Louise  justifies  me  in  bringing  out  a  second 

edition,  with  some  additional  "Reprints"  from  travel  and  life  on 

the  Continent. 

M.  McA.  T. 

Hm,SBORO,  Ohio,  September,  1901. 


The  Cradle  of  Queen  Louise. 
Sketch  by  Mary  McArthur  Tattle 


UN;      •    ir/ 


OF 

■ 


Zbc  flfcotbet  of  an  Emperor 


Chapter  I 

ON  a  windy  March  morning  in  1776,  in  the  old  city  of  Hanover, 
Germany,  a  beautiful  princess  was  born.  She  had  large  blue 
eyes  and  golden  hair. 

The  cradle  in  which  they  rocked  her,  when  she  was  large  enough 
to  be  taken  from  her  mother's  arms,  was  a  curiously-designed  little 
affair  of  dark,  rich  wood,  lined  with  green  silk.  The  "  sky-blue," 
the  baby  color  of  the  present  age,  seems  not  to  have  been  sought 
for  among  her  belongings.  Her  home  was  in  a  dark,  narrow 
street,  busy  with  the  traffic  of  an  old  German  city.  Her  father 
was  not  made  governor-general  of  the  city  until  after  her  birth. 
To  be  sure,  her  aunt  was  the  wife  of  George  III  of  England,  and 
both  she  and  the  king  were  very  partial  to  the  father  of  our  young 
princess. 

When  only  six  years  old,  and  the  golden  hair  was  beginning  to 
turn  a  trifle  brown,  she  and  her  sisters  were  taken  out  of  the  house 
very  suddenly  one  da}T,  and  when  they  returned  from  their  walk, 
they  were  told  that  their  aunt,  the  Princess  Charlotte,  would  remain 
with  them  for  the  present ;  that  their  mother  had  been  called  away. 

"  O,  why  does  mamma  stay  away  so  long?"  exclaimed  Louise, 
after  her  absence  had  become  unendurable  to  her. 

"Be  quiet,  my  child,"  said  her  aunt  Charlotte,  "you  shall  soon 
go  to  Darmstadt,  and  then  you  will  find  out  all  about  it." 

It  was  some  time  after  the  children  arrived  at  Darmstadt  that 
the  grand  duchess,  their  grandmother,  had  the  courage  to  tell  them 
that  their  mother  was  dead,  and  that  "Aunt  Charlotte"  was  to  be- 
come mamma  to  them.     But  alas!   Mamma   Charlotte  also  died 


6  Gbe  flftotbcr  of  an  JEmperor 

shortly  after  her  marriage,  and  Prince  Karl,  robbed  thus  twice  of 
home  ties  and  domestic  life,  decided  to  leave  his  children  perma- 
nently with  their  maternal  grandmother  in  Darmstadt. 

Around  the  castle  at  Darmstadt,  in  which  the  grand  duchess 
lived,  there  was  a  royal  old  garden,  long  avenues  of  trees,  grot- 
toes, rustic  seats  under  widespreading  trees.  Here  the  children 
pla3'ed,  and  one  day  little  Louise  wandered  very  near  a  seat  where 
a  tall,  slender  man  was  sitting.  He  held  his  head  erect — in  fact,  a 
little  thrown  back,  so  that  his  long,  flaxen  hair  and  blue  eyes  were 
in  the  full  blaze  of  the  sunlight.  To  the  child  he  looked  very  beau- 
tiful, and  she  continued  to  wander  around  and  about  the  seat,  and 
finally  came  so  near  she  could  see  him  writing  a  line,  ever}'  now 
and  then,  on  a  blank  book,  which  was  opened  wide,  tying  on  a 
rustic  table  which  stood  in  front  of  this  seat. 

This  poet,  this  thinker,  scarcely  noticed  the  shadow  of  the  little 
figure  moving  so  quickly  about  him.  Schiller  was  intent  upon  his 
great  drama  of  "  Don  Carlos,"  and  all  unaware  that  his  future 
queen  played  near  him,  and  that  one  day  she  would  sorrow  like  a 
sister  because  of  his  death. 

Between  the  year  of  Louise's  birth,  1776,  and  the  year  1790, 
which  we  are  now  approaching  in  her  history,  many  great  events 
happened  that  were  comparatively  unknown  to  her.  The  Assem- 
bly of  the  States-General  at  Versailles,  and  the  storming  of  the 
Bastile,  doubtless  she  heard  of,  but  that  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence in  America  was  of  the  same  date  as  her  birth  she  prob- 
ably never  knew.  The  Confederation  of  States,  the  Constitution, 
Washington's  Inauguration,  meant  very  little  to  a  young  German 
princess.  But  the  crowning  of  a  German  monarch,  which  event 
was  near  at  hand,  signified  much  of  interest  and  joy. 

The  Grand  Duchess  of  Hesse-Darmstadt  was  a  woman  of  prac- 
tical mind,  and  the  young  princesses  of  Mecklenburg  were  receiving 
a  most  substantial  education  under  her  roof.  She  promised  them, 
if  they  were  obedient,  she  would  allow  them  to  go  to  Frankfort  to 
witness  the  coronation  of  the  Emperor.  Leopold  II,  of  Austria, 
would  be  crowned  at  Frankfort-on-the-Main.  It  was  the  year  1790, 
and  Louise  was  fourteen  years  old. 

As    she  sat,  one  day,  working  on  a  pair  of  shoes  which  her 


^fe&^fe^w- 


Gbe  d&otbet  of  an  Bmperov  7 

grandma  said  "  she  must  finish  before  she  could  go  "  (these  were 
the  same  shoes  which,  Prince  Metternich  tells  us,  she  wore  at  the 
coronation  ball  of  Francis  II,  two  years  later,  the  evening  he  danced 
with  her),  she  looked  up  with  a  beaming  smile  and  said  to  the 
grand  duchess :  "  O  grandma,  possibly  the  beautiful  French  Queen, 
Marie  Antoinette,  will  attend  the  coronation  of  the  Emperor.  I 
should  rather  see  her  than  any  one  on  earth." 

"O  no,  my  child;  that  is  quite  impossible!  France  is  full  of 
excitement,  and  the  king  and  queen  could  not  leave  Paris." 

The  two  young  princesses  started  in  company  with  their  Han- 
overian relatives,  in  September,  for  Frankfort-on-the-Main.  Such 
an  occasion  in  the  old  capital  naturally  aroused  the  wildest  enthusi- 
asm. According  to  custom,  and  that  the  festivities  should  be  con- 
ducted with  proper  order  and  dignity,  the  city  was  divided  into  as 
many  parts  as  there  were  electors.  Much  pomp  and  rivalry  were 
displayed,  the  different  representatives  of  the  various  courts  vying 
with  one  another.  The  elector  of  Hanover  held  his  court  in  that 
portion  of  the  city  known  as  the  Rossmarkt  and  Grossen  Hirsch- 
graben.  One  of  the  handsome  houses  in  that  part  of  the  city  be- 
longed to  the  mother  of  the  distinguished  poet,  Goethe.  This  was 
not  the  first  coronation  Frau  Rathin  had  witnessed,  nor  would  it 
be  the  last.  She  wrote  to  a  friend  that  she  was  "a  prisoner  in  the 
house,  waiting  for  the  officers  to  come  and  tell  her  whom  she 
should  entertain.  But,"  continues  she,  "  I  have  always  something 
to  do.     My  son  sends  me  books  and  papers  in  abundance." 

When  it  was  decided  that  the  two  young  Darmstadt  princesses 
were  to  be  her  guests,  she  was  delighted.  Her  place  for  witness- 
ing the  ceremony  was  in  a  window  in  the  Romer,  near  the  clock, 
assigned  to  her  out  of  compliment  to  her  husband's  memory,  who 
had  been  one  of  the  chief  magistrates  of  Frankfort-on-the-Main. 
Yes,  this  cheerful,  gay,  winning  "  Frau  Rathin,"  as  she  was  called, 
was  in  a  great  glee  over  the  arrival  of  her  young  guests. 

After  returning  from  the  exciting  scene  of  the  coronation,  she 
and  the  young  princesses  went  up  the  highly-polished  old  stairway 
in  her  house,  which  leads  to  many  rooms,  and  to  an  alcove  which 
Goethe,  her  distinguished  son,  especially  cared  for.  There  the 
Frau  Rathin  sat  down,  almost  out  of  breath  from  the  fatigue  and 


8  Cbe  /footber  ot  an  Emperor 

excitement  of  the  day,  and  looked  around  on  the  table  for  a  letter 
from  Wolfgang;  "for  he  certainly  has  written,"  she  exclaimed, 
"now  that  he  has  failed  to  come."  Finding  no  letter  from  her 
son,  whom  she  justly  idolized,  she  quieted  down  for  awhile  from 
her  usual  hilarity. 

The  young  princesses  stood  at  the  window,  which  overlooks 
the  old  plastered  court-yard,  and  said  they  wanted  a  drink  of  water. 
"  Shall  we  not  go,"  said  Louise,  "and  pump  it  for  ourselves?"  and 
away  they  ran,  escaping  the  notice  of  Frau  Rathin,  but  alas!  not 
of  their  governess,  who  spied  the  young  creatures  at  their  sport 
and  flew  after  them  in  a  rage.  This  provoked  the  dear,  old,  good- 
natured  Frau  Goethe  to  such  a  degree  that  she  exclaimed :  "  Shame 
on  you!  I  shall  lock  you  up  in  this  room  before  you  shall  disturb 
the  dear,  young  creatures.  Are  they  not  bound  down  enough  by 
court  etiquette  when  with  the  grand  duchess  ?  When  they  are  in 
my  house  they  shall  do  as  they  please !" 

The  Emperor  Leopold  II  of  Austria  lived  only  two  years  after 
his  coronation.  His  crown  was  placed  upon  the  head  of  his  son, 
Francis  II,  and  once  again  the  old  capital  was  alive  with  festivity. 
A  description  of  this  occasion  was  written  by  Goethe  in  his  usual 
wealth  of  diction  and  local  color. 

Louise  and  her  sisters  were  allowed  once  more  to  go  to  Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main,  and  afterward  to  attend  the  ball  at  Coblentz,  in 
honor  of  the  coronation.  Prince  Metternich  writes  in  his  memoirs : 
"I  opened  the  ball  with  the  young  Princess.  Louise  of  Mecklen- 
burg, who,  afterward,  as  Queen  of  Prussia,  was  distinguished  for 
her  beauty  and  noble  qualities.  She  is  said  to  have  worn  shoes  on 
this  occasion,  made  by  her  own  hands."  The  hair  was  arranged 
in  a  most  distinguished  style,  which  certainly  increased  the  splen- 
dor of  her  face.  Her  full,  rosy  lips,  and  large,  sympathetic  eyes 
attracted  admiration  throughout  her  entire  life,  not  only  from  roy- 
alty, but  from  all  who  looked  upon  her ;  and  her  magnificent  figure, 
commanding  and  self-poised,  was  truly  that  of  a  queen. 

The  winter  of  this  same  year — 1792-1793 — brought  an  invitation 
to  the  young  princesses  to  meet  Frederick  William  II  of  Prussia  at 
Mainz,  where  his  army  was  encamped.  Goethe  tells  us  that  he 
happened  to  be  in   camp   at  this  time,  and  it  was  partly  for  his 


Original  Sketches  by  Mary  McArthur  Turtle 
Copyright  owned  by  the  Open  Court  Maga- 
zine Co.,  Chicago,  and  loaned  for  this  work 


Gbe  d&otbet  of  an  Emperor  9 

pleasure  that  a  promenade  was  arranged  for  the  princesses.  When 
the  hour  came  for  their  arrival,  he  says,  "  I  flew  to  my  tent,  buckled 
myself  in,  and,  by  peeping  through,  witnessed  the  promenade  of 
the  royal  party."  In  the  excitement  and  confusion  of  war-scenes, 
which  all  were  accustomed  to,  these  young  creatures  seemed  like 
angels  going  to  and  fro  among  the  tents.  The  Crown  Prince  Fred- 
erick and  his  brother,  Ludwig,  were  equally  impressed  by  them, 
and  found  it  no  effort  to  fall  in  love  with  them.  "  She  must  be  the 
one,  or  no  one  on  earth,"  said  the  crown  prince  in  regard  to  Louise  ; 
and,  sure  enough,  on  Christmas-day,  1793,  Louise  gave  to  Prince 
Frederick  William,  in  the  White  Hall  of  the  palace  at  Berlin,  a 
pledge  for  life ;  and  the  tears  which  filled  her  large,  blue  eyes  in 
that  hour  testified  to  her  sincerity.  Happy  beyond  expression 
was  this  young  royal  pair,  realizing  little  but  their  own  attachment. 
The  reign  of  terror,  which  alarmed  France,  all  Europe  agitated — 
these  facts  had  little  significance  to  them  just  now. 

One  of  the  first  presents  Louise  received  from  her  husband 
was  a  small  phaeton.  She  greatly  preferred  to  drive  out  in  it,  in- 
stead of  ordering  the  royal  carriage  with  the  eight  spanned  and 
the  body-guards.  This  simplicity  of  taste  rather  shocked  the  la- 
dies in  waiting.  The  prince  and  princess  were  altogether  "  too 
modest  to  suit  them."  ("My  single  phaeton  and  iron  bedstead," 
said  the  late  Emperor  William,  "  are  hereditary  privileges.  I  have 
the  tastes  of  my  mother.") 

The  3-oung  royal  pair  became  greatly  beloved  by  the  people, 
and  many  anecdotes  are  preserved  in  which  they  are  said  to  have 
always  had  the  poor  at  heart  One  morning  a  count  and  a  shoe- 
maker happened  to  be  waiting  in  the  anteroom  at  the  same  time. 
"Let  the  shoemaker  come  in  first,"  said  the  crown  princess,  "he 
has  less  time  than  the  count." 

It  was  an  age  of  luxury  and  display.  There  was  little  left  of 
true  religion — although  literature  flourished,  and  poets  like  Jean 
Paul,  and  even  Geothe,  sometimes,  used  the  beauty  of  their  art  in 
writing  about  the  superiority  of  the  crown  princess.  At  the  early 
age  of  twenty-six,  Frederick  William,  the  crown  prince,  will  be  the 
king.  Noble  aims  and  a  noble  bearing,  much  reserve  of  manner 
and  speech,  characterized  him  as  crown  prince. 


io  Cbe  /Ifcotber  of  an  Bmpcror 


Chapter  II 

THE  news  reached  Berlin  on  a  bitter  morning  in  January,  1793, 
just  about  one  year  previous  to  the  wedding  in  the  palace, 
that  the  King  of  France  had  been  executed.  The  following  October 
the  beautiful  Queen  of  France,  Marie  Antoinette,  followed  her  hus- 
band on  the  scaffold.  "  O,  what  a  revolution!"  says  Edmund 
Burke;  "and  what  a  heart  I  must  have  to  contemplate,  without 
emotion,  that  elevation  and  that  fall!  Little  did  I  dream  that  I 
should  have  lived  to  see  such  disaster  fallen  upon  her  in  a  nation  of 
gallant  men,  in  a  nation  of  men  of  honor  and  of  cavaliers." 

The  terrible  news  from  France  alarmed  every  crowned  head  in 
Europe,  and  our  young  crown  prince  and  princess  were  so  saddened 
by  the  revolutionary  state  of  affairs  that  they  staid  quietly  in 
their  palace,  and  seemed  to  have  little  heart  for  the  elegance  about 
them ;  indeed,  court  etiquette  and  court  festivities  were  very  irk- 
some to  them. 

On  the  10th  of  March,  which  was  the  birthday  of  the  crown 
princess,  the  king  desired  to  celebrate  it  in  a  manner  which  would 
convince  Louise  of  his  real  affection  for  her.  For  a  gift  he  pre- 
sented her  with  a  palace  at  Oranienburg,  and  then,  turning  to  her, 
he  said,    "Louise,  have  you  still  a  wish  in  your  heart?" 

She  looked  at  him  with  that  wonderful  charm  of  countenance 
which  was  peculiar  to  her,  and  said,  "Yes,  a  handful  of  money  for 
the  poor." 

"  That  depends,"  said  the  king,  "upon  how  large  the  handful  is 
to  be." 

"As  large  as  the  heart  of  the  best  of  kings,"  was  Louise's 
prompt  reply. 

She  walked  through  the  markets,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  the 
crown  prince,  and  distributed  money  right  and  left ;  and  the  poor 
old  women  and  the  ragged  children  were  overjoyed,  not  alone  with 
their  money,  but  with  the  sight  of  the  beautiful  crown  princess. 


TZbe  dbotber  of  an  Bmp^rot 

As  this  was  in  March,  she  may  have  worn  this  very  leghorn  bon- 
net which  is  kept  among  her  relics.  She  is  now  only  seventeen 
years  old,  full  of  simplicity,  beauty,  and  unostentatious  in  every 
way.  Both  she  and  the  crown  prince  are  truly  beloved  by  the  peo- 
ple over  whom  they  will  reign  in  course  of  time. 

The  Emperor  Francis  II  of  Austria  was  weak  and  vacillating, 
as  was  also  our  Prussian  King  Frederick  William  II.  He  and  the 
Emperor  Francis  were  anxious  to  see  the  French  Republic  over- 
thrown ;  but  they  were  also  interested  in  conquests  of  their  own- 
in  other  words,  they  had  "two  irons  in  the  fire,"  and  were  not 
very  successful  in  looking  after  either. 

Our  Prussian  king  has  only  three  more  years  to  live.  If  he 
could  have  known  this,  like  most  mortals,  he  would  have  made 
different  plans.  He  determined,  however,  in  the  early  months  of 
1795,  to  sign  the  Treaty  of  Basle,  which,  in  a  way,  meant  peace  with 
France.  This  agreement  between  France  and  Prussia  was  "the 
first  of  the  Treaties  of  Basle."  Prussia  ceded  to  France  the  German 
possessions  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  under  certain  conditions 
which  afterwards  caused  much  trouble;  for  although  Frederick 
William  II  died  two  years  later,  yet  the  pernicious  acts  of  his  reign 
left  a  difficult  situation  for  his  son  Frederick  William  III  and 
Queen  Louise. 

The  policy  of  the  Austrian  Emperor  Francis  II  had  differed 
somewhat  from  that  of  the  Prussian  King  in  relation  to  France. 
But  a  month  previous  to  the  death  of  Frederick  William  II  the 
Treaty  of  Campo  Formio  was  signed  after  lengthy  discussion. 


i2  £bc  /Hbotber  of  an  Bmpcror 


Chapter  III 

r  T  is  the  beginning  of  a  new  century.  Frederick  William  III 
*■  and  Queen  Louise  have  reigned  four  years.  By  the  reconstitu- 
tion  of  February  9,  1801  (peace  of  Luneville),  the  free  cities  of 
Germany  were  reduced  to  six,  while  the  reconstitution  of  Germany 
in  1803,  accepted  by  the  Diet  of  Ratisbon,  broke  down  the  fabric 
of  the  old  Holy  Roman  Empire.  No  more  coronations  at  Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main,  few  more  festivities.  This  great  change  in  the 
affairs  of  Francis  II,  Emperor  of  Austria,  naturally  affected  the 
convictions  of  our  Prussian  King.  It  is  a  curious  fact  in  history 
that  the  eventful  year  of  1797,  in  which  his  father  died,  and  the 
Emperor  Francis  II  signed  the  Treaty  of  Campo  Formio,  was  the 
same  year  in  which  the  late  Emperor  William  was  born.  Could 
his  discouraged  parents  have  had  the  inspiration  which  his  achieve- 
ments brought  to  the  Fatherland  in  1871,  how  much  of  the  gloom 
settling  about  them  could  have  been  dispelled,  and  how  much  glory- 
re-established,  if  not  actually,  yet  prospectively!  If  they  had 
known  that  William,  their  son,  would  rise  up,  like  a  giant,  to  cre- 
ate a  new  German  Empire,  what  pride  of  heart  would  have  pos- 
sessed them !  But  they  only  knew  that  they  were  facing  a  new 
century  full  of  alarm  and  danger! 

It  was  the  policy  of  Frederick  William  III  to  keep  Prussia  neu- 
tral— to  play  the  part  of  indifference,  possibty.  He  was  tired  out 
with  the  continuous  fermentation  of  European  politics;  for  he  had 
known  little  else  from  his  }routh  on,  and  he  was  a  man  of  domestic 
habits,  satisfied  with  the  joys  of  his  home  life  and  his  beloved 
queen.  He  was  a  man  of  excellent  personal  qualities;  not  very 
energetic,  however,  or  ambitious,  nor  especially  clear  in  judgment 
or  intelligence.  But  Louise,  his  wife,  was  not  only  energetic,  but 
ambitious,  and  with  a  just  pride  and  appreciation  for  the  ancestors 
of  her  husband,  and  the  true  dignity  of  the  house  of  the  Hohen- 
zollerns.     Prussia  took  no  part  in  the  coalition  of  Austria  and  Rus. 


Queen  Louise  by  Gustav  Richter. 

By  permission  of  The  Berlin  Photographic 

Company,  New  York. 


S: 


■»• 


X 


The  private  Chapel  of  Frederick  William  III  and 
Queen  Louise  in  the  Charlottenburg  Palace. 


Sketch  by  Mary  McArthur  Tuttle. 


[The  King  and  Queen  were  Protestants.  *  Without  interference  in  religious  be- 
lief, a  religious  spirit  was  encouraged  by  the  Government.  The  Evangelical 
Union  was  founded  in  1817  as  a  testimonial  of  reconciliation  between  the  Luther- 
ans and  the  Reformed  Churcnes— it  being  the  Third  Centennial  celebration  of 
the  Reformation.  King  Frederick  William  III  used  all  his  influence  to  accom- 
plish this!] 


Gbe  dfcotber  of  an  Bmperot  13 

sia  in  1805,  who  were   more  than   ever  determined  to  lessen  the 
power  of  Bonaparte,  who  was  proclaimed  Emperor  of  the  French, 
May  18,  1804.      Louise  warns  the  king  of  this  weak  policy.      He 
simply  agrees  to  give  up  Cleves  to  France,  and  Anspach  to  Bavaria, 
and  take  possession  of  Hanover  under  certain  provisions.     In,  two 
short  months  from  this  time,  "  Prussia  was  obliged  definitely  to  ac- 
cept Hanover  by  a  supplementary  treaty  ;"   a  fact  which  provoked 
England,  who  was  Prussia's  friend.     The  people  grew  very  restless 
under  this  policy.     The   death  of  William  Pitt,  January  23,  1806, 
and  the  succession  of  Lord  Grenville  and  Fox  to  office,  convinced 
Napoleon  that  he  had  better  negotiate  for  peace  with  England,  so, 
as  a  "peace  offering,"  he  compelled  Prussia  to  restore  Hanover  to 
England.     This  aroused  Frederick  William  III,  and  war  was  inev- 
itable.    He  rose  to  meet  France,  when  he  must  meet  her,  with  no 
allies  but  Saxony,  Weimar,  and  Russia  (whose  aid  was  not  to  be 
had  at  a  moment's  warning).     Dangerous  times  for  Prussia  to  as- 
sert herself.      But  the  king  will   no   longer  keep  quiet.      Louise 
accompanied  the  king  to  the  camp  at  Weimar.     The  da}-  before  the 
battle  of  Jena  she  returned  to  Berlin.     Before  she  could  reach  the 
city,  a  messenger  overtook  her,  saying,  "All  was  lost!"     After  the 
battle  of  Jena,  October  14,  1806,  Napoleon  soon  felt  himself  master 
of  Germany.     On  October  27th    he  entered   Berlin  through  the 
Brandenburg   gate  in  triumph.      The   Chariot  of  Victory,   which 
surmounts  the  gate  he  had  taken  down  as  a  trophy,  and  sent  to 
Paris;  also  the  sword  of  Frederick  the  Great.     Frederick  William 
III  fled  to  Ciistrin,  where  he  joined  the  queen,  they  having  parted 
on  the  morning  of  the  battle  of  Jena.     From  Ciistrin   they  took 
up  their  flight  to  Kdnigsburg.      From  this  far-off  outpost  of  their 
kingdom   they  soon  learned    that   all    was   lost.     "  Thus    I  see," 
exclaimed  Louise,  "an  edifice  destroyed  in  a  da}-,   on  the  erection 
of  which  great  men  have  labored  for  two  centuries." 

In  December  of  this  same  year,  1806,  the  queen  was  very  ill 
with  typhus.  On  the  night  of  the  2 2d  the  news  came  that  the 
French  were  near  at  hand.  A  terrible  storm  was  raging,  but  not- 
withstanding all  obstacles  of  the  elements  and  of  physical  condi- 
tion, the  queen  declared  that  "she  would  rather  fall  into  the  hands 
of  God  than  the  hands  of  that  man,"  and  arrangements  must  be 


i4  Zbe  /fcotber  ot  an  Bmpcror 

made  to  take  up  the  flight  to  Memel.  This  was  not  accomplished 
until  the  3d  of  January.  Three  days  and  nights  were  spent  on  that 
awful  journey,  "  now  in  the  waves  of  the  sea,  now  in  ice,  the  nights 
in  the  most  wretched  hovels." 

The  sufferings  of  the  royal  family  were  great  indeed ;  for  Napo- 
leon had  not  only  been  the  man  of  war,  but  had  showed  himself  to 
be  a  man  devoid  of  nobility  in  all  the  details  of  his  conduct  in  Berlin. 

In  July,  1807,  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  Alexander,  and  Napoleon 
met  on  a  raft  in  the  river  Niemen.  There  they  agreed  upon  terms 
of  peace.  Alexander  pleaded  for  Prussia,  but  Napoleon  was  arro- 
gantly unreasonable.  Alexander  told  Frederick  William  perhaps 
the  presence  of  the  queen  would  soften  Napoleon's  feelings,  and  so 
the  proud  queen,  the  beautiful  woman  whom  he  had  slandered, 
had  to  wait  at  Tilsit  for  an  interview — to  meet  Napoleon,  the  man 
for  whom  she  had  untold  bitterness  in  her  heart.  He,  wTith  char- 
acteristic abruptness,  not  caring  for  her  crushed  pride  nor  her  days 
of  exile,  said,    "  How  could  you  think  of  making  war  upon  me  ?" 

Scarcely  able  to  control  her  voice,  she  replied,  "Sire,  we  were 
mistaken  in  our  resources,  in  our  calculations." 

"And  you  trusted  in  Frederick's  fame,  and  deceived  yourselves?" 
said  Napoleon. 

The  queen  allowed  her  ingenuous  countenance  to  beam  on  Na- 
poleon as  she  again  answered  him : 

"Sire,  in  the  strength  of  the  great  Fredrick's  fame,  we  may  be 
excused  for  having  been  mistaken  with  respect  to  our  power  and 
means  at  our  command,  if,  indeed,  we  have  been  entirely  mistaken." 

One  of  the  famous  artists  of  Germany  has  represented  her  in 
this  dignified  moment,  as  she  descends  the  stairs  to  meet  Napoleon. 
Napoleon  was  impressed.  He  told  Talleyrand :  "  I  knew  I  should  see 
a  beautiful  woman,  and  a  queen  with  dignified  manners,  but  I 
found  the  most  admirable  queen  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  most 
interesting  woman  I  have  ever  seen."  She  wore,  on  this  occasion, 
a  white  crepe  dress,  richly  embroidered  in  silk,  which  attracted 
Napoleon's  eye. 

"Is  it  crepe?  India  gauze?"  said  he,  touching  the  fine  material. 

"Shall  we  speak  of  such  light  things  at  a  moment  like  this?" 
said  Louise. 


Portrait  of  Queen  Louise  about  the  time  of  the 
meeting  with  Xapoleon  at  Tilsit. 


ZZfTTT^, 


The  bed  room  In  the  Chariot  ten  burg  Palace  occupied  by 
Napoleon,  which  Queen  Louise  refused  to  enter  again 


The  room  in  the  Charlottenburg  Palace  made  ready 
for  Queen  Louise  after  Napoleon's  departure. 


Sketch  by  Mary  Me  A   Tutt'e. 


£be  /tootber  of  an  Smperoc  15 

Napoleon  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  her  pleadings  for  her  country, 
their  throne,  and  their  children,  for  he  cared  nothing  for  her 
crushed  pride  nor  her  days  of  exile.  Never  in  his  career  did  he 
show  less  heart  than  in  that  interview  at  Tilsit. 

The  ro}-al  ones  returned  to  their  sad  abode  at  Konigsburg,  the 
onry  place  left  them  on  Prussian  soil,  where  they  had  already  en- 
dured so  much  exposure. 

'■Let  us  be  stead}-  and  patient,  and  wait,  and  God  will  help  us," 
said  the  king.  But  not  until  1809  were  they  helped  back  to  their 
kingdom. 

The  room  in  the  Charlottenburg  Palace,  occupied  by  Napoleon 
in  his  arrogance  and  ruthlessness,  while  the  royal  family  was  in 
exile,  was  ordered  to  be  rehung,  and  all  made  new,  and  even  then 
the  queen  would  not  enter  it.  Another  room,  with  white  muslin 
and  pink  silk  draperies,  and  the  bed,  with  a  green  satin  quilted 
comforter  thrown  over  it,  is  still  shown  to  visitors  as  the  room  she 
afterward  called  "her  own." 

Louise  was  anxious  to  visit  her  father's  house  the  following 
year.  There  she  died,  like  a  queen,  beautiful,  beloved,  angelic 
even  to  the  last  hours. 

She  had  said  during  her  life  she  did  not  care  to  belong  to  the 
spirited,  highly  intellectual  heroines  who  spend  their  lives  outside 
of  woman's  sphere.  She  felt  herself  drawn,  not  so  much  to  the 
character  of  Sophia  Charlotte,  her  great  predecessor  on  the  throne 
of  Prussia,  as  to  the  wife  of  the  great  Elector,  the  pious  Louise  of 
Orange.  Even  the  similarity  in  name  was  a  pleasure  to  her.  But 
her  own  account  of  herself  is  possibly  not  so  true  a  picture  of  her 
as  we  get  from  other  sources.  Prince  Metternich,  who  danced 
with  her  at  the  ball  of  Coblentz,  says,  in  his  "Memoirs:"  "Eleven 
years  had  passed  since  I  had  seen  the  queen.  I  found  her  sur- 
rounded by  a  true  halo  of  beauty  and  dignity.  Queen  Louise  was 
endowed  with  the  rarest  qualities.  She  did  not  excel  in  what  is 
commonly  called  esprit,  but  she  possessed  a  refined  tact  and 
strength  of  mind,  for  the  exercise  of  which,  in  a  few  years,  she  had 
onfy  too  many  opportunities.  It  would  be  difficult  to  describe  the 
dignity  and  grace  of  her  bearing  or  the  impression  of  sweetness 
and  tenderness  her  manners  made." 


16  Cbe  dfcotbcr  of  an  Emperor 

But  the  beautiful  Louise,  whom  we  have  admired  as  a  child,  as 
a  young  girl  or  a  crown  princess  of  seventeen,  and  as  a  queen,  is 
now  about  to  leave  the  world,  a  broken-hearted  woman,  not  know- 
ing even  that  her  struggles  and  her  forbearance  would  stand  as  a 
saintly  example  to  the  nation.  It  is  the  year  1810,  and  she  is 
dying.  The  splendid  victory  at  Leipsic  has  not  yet  been  won, 
nor  has  the  Te  Deum  over  the  decisive  battle  at  Waterloo  been  sung. 

The  women  of  Berlin,  three  years  after  her  death,  gave  their 
gold  ornaments  for  the  benefit  of  their  country,  and  received,  in 
place  of  them,  iron  in  like  patterns,  which  are  shown  as  sacred 
relics  in  Germany  to  this  day. 

The  mausoleum  at  Charlottenburg  contains  the  splendid  recum- 
bent figures  of  Frederick  William  III  and  Queen  Louise.  They 
were  sculptured  by  Rauch,  in  whom  the  queen  had  found  genius  for 
art  while  he  was  serving  as  a  page  in  the  palace.  She  sent  him 
to  Italy  to  study.  Canova  and  Thorwaldsen  encouraged  him. 
After  the  queen's  death,  Frederick  William  III  gave  Rauch  an 
order  for  these  tombs.  More  exquisite  art  is  seldom  found,  either 
among  ancient  or  modern  productions. 


Reprinted  from  the  Western  Christian  Advocate,  Cincinnati,  by  courtesy 
of  Jennings  &  Pye,  Publishers. 


The  recumbent  statues  of  King  Frederick  William  III 
and  Queen  Louise  :  Charlottenburg  Mausoleum. 


Last,  the  Prussian  trumpet  blew: 
Thro'  the  long-tormented  air 
Heaven  flash'd  a  sudden  jubilant  ray, 
And  down  we  swept  and  charged  and  overthrew. 
********* 

In  that  world's-earthquake,  Waterloo! 

-Tennyson's  Ode  on  the  Death  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington. 


from  rbe  Baltic  to  the  Bt>riattc. 


W>  hesitated  quite  awhile  before  deciding  to  expend  the  neces- 
sary amount  for  a  trip  from  Berlin  to  Danzig.  The  historical  interest 
of  Marienburg,  through  which  we  would  pass  on  our  return,  and  the  re- 
puted picturesqueness  of  Danzig  we  hoped  would  compensate  us,  how- 
ever,for  the  time  and  money.  At  an  early  hour  one  September  morning 
we  drove  across  the  busiest  portion  of  Berlin  (the  most  unknown  to 
the  traveler),  to  take  our  train  at  the  ost  bahn.  I  had  seen  this 
portion  cf  the  city  only  once  before,  when  v/e  started  to  visit  the 
country  cf  the  Wends,  the  original  people  in  all  the  region  of  the 
Baltic. 

The  tedious  stretch  of  sand  broken  here  and  there  by  a  peasant's 
house  with  red  tile  roof  was  the  same  we  traversed  so  often  in  leaving 
Berlin  for  other  neighboring  towns  and  cities.  This  inevitable 
'•plain  of  Moab"  which  discouraged  Frederick  the  Great's  French 
gardeners.  How  such  a  thriving,  populous  city  as  Berlin  has  ever 
asserted  itself  in  the  sand,  is  a  problem.  V/e  passed  Bismarck's  es- 
tate in  Pomerania  ^P^'f^isJ'  and  one  of  the  party  reflected 
upon  the  great  statesman,  the  largest  factor  in  German  political  life; 
while  the  other  remembered  the  sad  and  dejected  royal  pair  which 
were  driven  by  Napoleon's  lury  to  take  this  same  route  to  Memel. 
The  lovely  Queen  Louise  and  Frederick  William  III  when  there 
with  their  royal  children,  prayed  that  the  tyrant's  hand  might  be 
stayed,  and  they  brought  back  to  their  rightful  kingdom.  Alas! 
death  claimed  the  beautiful  queen  before  the  peace  for  which  she 
prayed  was  restored  to  Prussia.  But  in  her  son,  the  present  Em- 
peror, ther3  has  been  perpetuated  the  spirit  of  his  mother. 
Prussia's  high  position  to-day  has  been  secured  not  altogether  by  the 
might   of   her   great  army,     ,or   the   tremendous  genius  of  her  great 


JProm  tbe  Baltic  to  the  BOriattc. 

statesmen,  nor  the  ambition  of  her  kings,  but  by  the  growth  of  senti- 
ment during  the  reigns  of  Frederick  William  III,  and  IV.,  and  by 
the  precept  Queen  Louise  instilled  into  her  sons  during  those  dark 
and  sorrowful  days  of  exile:  "My  sons,  let  the  spirit  of  Frederick 
the  Great  animate  you." 

Slofinberg  and CfliiTin  were  passed,  and  finally  the  blue  Baltic 
and  Danzig  were  in  sight.  We  had  almost  looked  for  amber- 
colored  water,  so  long  had  we  associated  the  beautiful  display  of 
amber  jewels  in  the  Berlin  shop  windows  with  the  Baltic,  from  which 
it  is  taken.  Even  Homer  refers  to  the  Baltic  as  the  resting  place  of 
amber,  its  bed  being  laid  with  the  sunny  stone. 

A  multitude  of  ship-masts  rose  from  the  coast,  and  from  beyond 
the  pointed  gables  of  the  old  city,  lessened  in  altitude  as  the  vista 
lengthened.  This  first  glimpse  was  a  more  fascinating  picture  than 
we  were  afterward  able  to  find  Yet  the  hotel  helped  the  precon- 
ceived idea  that  Danzig  was  really  a  second  Nuremberg, 

The  broad  stone  steps,  or  stairway,  which  started  from  the 
portecorhere,  were  whitened  by  ashes,  as  one  so  often  sees  them  in 
Germany — a  pretty  state  of  things  for  a  lady  descending  in  a  black 
dress.  The  room  we  were  to  occupy  was  an  immense  ball-room, 
utilized  in  quiet  times  for  a  bed  room.  Two  candles  burned  in  their 
tall  candlesticks  on  the  center  table,  and  by  the  light  of  the  twilight 
we  could  see  across  the  street  some  beautiful  and  curious  carvings 
in  the  opposite  gabled  houses.  The  price  paid  for  accommodations 
was  large  enough  to  have  enabled  us  to  see  castles  in  the  air,  and 
to  have  our  ball-room  illuminated  by  chandeliers  until  morning.  We 
concluded  they  seldom  had  guests  in  this  hotel,  and  therefore  made 
heavy  profits  when  some  did  come  along. 

That  evening  we  wandered  around  the  old  crooked  streets — paved 
in  cobble-stones,  which  wore  our  shoes  almost  in  pieces — until  we 
were  glad  to  pause  in  front  of  the  great  old  ted-brick  cathedral. 
Its  towers  cut  the  big  yellow  moon  in  two  at  every  angle  we  could 
see    them.       We    raised    our    eyes    to    take     in    the    tremendous 


M    McA.  T 


The  Louise  Island. 

Thier  Garten,  Berlin. 


ffrom  tbe  Baltic  to  tbe  Striatic. 

dimensions  of  the  cathedral,  and  the  ornamentations  of  some  of  the 
best  houses,  until  we  suddenly  remembered  that  it  was  nearing  mid- 
night, and  that  we  had  been  in  actual  service  at  sight-seeing  and 
traveling  since  an  early  hour  that  morning,  so  we  returned  to  our 
ball-room  and  two  candles.  The  next  morning,  we  imagined,  we 
would  have  a  great  treat  in  hunting  up  old  carved  furniture,  for  which 
Danzig,  we  had  been  told  by  our  German  friends,  was  equal  to  Augs- 
burg ;  but  the  antiquarians  had  left  no  place  unexplored.  No  trace 
of  massive-legged  table  or  curiously-carved  chairs  was  to  be  found, 
save  in  the  Museum  and  the  Rathhaus  (Council  Hall).  The  stair- 
way of  the  Council  Hall  remains  indeed  a  monument  to  the  ingenious 
designer  and  skillful  carver,  and  the  judge's  chair  is  most  curious. 

A  fine  old  convent  has  been  turned  into  a  museum.  Its  hreuz- 
ga'ngCy  or  cross-passages,  gave  the  place  a  most  mysterious,  se 
questered  air,  and  they  are  gradually  collecting  some  great  pictures 
and  treasures  within  its  walls.  But  the  Rathhaus,  in  its  architec- 
ture, surpasses  everything  in  Danzig,  excepting,  perhaps,  its  fine  old 
gateways. 

The  most  distinguished  houses  in  Danzig  have  on  either  side  of 
the  entrance,  at  a  distance  of  five  feet,  immense  stones  hewn  out  of 
solid  rock.  They  are  nine  feet,  probably,  in  circumferance.  A 
chain  is  attached,  which  is  given  a  graceful  swing  before  being 
fastened  again  to  either  side  of  the  front  door,  about  as  high  up  as 
the  brass  knocker.  As  these  big  round  stones  grow  smaller  in 
perspective,  they  give  a  peculiarity  to  a  street.  They  seem  to  be 
peculiar  to  Danzig,  unless  one  or  two  dwellings  in  Edinburgh  have 
them.  The  big  stone,  the  large  chains,  the  tremendous  brass 
knockers,  and  the  innumerable  windows  in  the  six  stories  of  the 
pointed  gables,  suggest  aristocratic  dwellings,  and  surpass  the  houses 
in  Nuremberg. 

An  important  political  meeting  at  Stettin,  which  my  husband  de- 
sired to  attend  defeated  our  intention  of  seeing  Marienburg  on  our 
return  to  Berlin.      Marienburg  is  a  place  few  foreigners  find  out,  but 


ifxom  tbc  JBaltic  to  tfoe  Bortatic. 

Lubke.  in  his  "History  of  Art,"  represents  the  architecture  of  the 
palace  occupied  by  the  knights,  or  crusaders,  for  two  centuries,  as 
one  of  the  most  exquisite  ruins  in  all  Germany.  Thorn  and 
Konigsbarg  were  also  homes  for  this  order  of  knights. 

The  following  day  at  noon  it  was  rather  refreshing  to  drive  into  so 
modern  and  gay  a  place  as  Berlin,  and  forget  that  so  many  people 
must  exist  in  places  like  Danzig.  Mediaeval  life  seems  still  to  en- 
wrap them  there  as  in  a  garment.  Their  eyes  are  closed  to  any 
modern  idea  or  project. 

Berlin  contains  all  that  is  new  and  progressive  in  northern  Germany. 
That  day  as  v/e  sat  in  the  garden  of  the  "Thiergarten  Hotel,"  eating  de- 
licious salmon,  the  old  emperor  drove  by  in  his  open  carriage,  with 
his  faithful  jager.  He  was  still  a  subject  for  curiosity,  as  it  was  so 
soon  after  the  attempt  had  been  made  to  assassinate  him,  June  7, 
1878.  When  he  was  fired  on  he  drove  in  this  same  open  carriage 
with  this  same  faithful  jdger.  The  sight  of  the  emperor  re- 
called the  previous  months  which  had  been  so  full  of  politcal  stir 
in  Europe.  The  session  of  the  Berlin  Congress,  and  the  occupation 
of  Bosnia  by  the  Austrians  had  taken  place. 

To  describe  Berlin  to  those  who  have  not  visited  it,  is  simply  tell- 
ing, generally,  the  size  of  palaces,  the  number  of  art  collections,  the 
width  of  streets,  the  squares  occupied  by  statues,  the  places  of 
amusement — but  even  when  these  objects  and  interests  are  put  in 
writing  they  leave  little  impression  until  the  place  is  seen.  But  there 
is  another  aspect  of  the  great  Prussian  capital.  It  is  a  wonderful 
place  just  now,  attracting  so  many  foreign  students  to  its  university, 
the  best  musical  talent  to  its  conservatories,  and  the  first  military 
genius  within  its  walls.  No  matter  what  branch  of  study  one  may 
choose,  the  instruction  and  illustration  is  right  at  hand.  To  the  stu- 
dent of  politics  it  is  a  most  fruitful  field,  not  only  because  distinguish- 
ed statesmen  frequent  its  streets  every  day,  but  because  grave  prob- 
lems in  political  science  are  discussed  in  the  Reichstag  or  taught  in 
the   University.     The   student   of  physics  or  of  natural  sciences  can 


ink 


I   UNIV 


3from  tbe  SSalttc  to  tbe  BDriattc. 

work  under  Helmholz  and  others ;  the  student  of  music  can  secure 
Joachim  or  Clara  Schumann,  or  the  student  of  art  Knaus  or  Rich- 
ter.  Berlin  has  no  pulpit  orator.  The  Dom  is  more  frequented  be- 
cause of  its  tombs  than  for  any  living  influence  it  extends.  It  con- 
tains the  coffins  of  Frederick  William,  the  great  elector,  and  Fred- 
erick I,  king  of  Prussia.  The  Mendelssohn  choir  chants  its  anthems, 
and  the  Emperor  and  Empress  bow  at  its  communion  table  ;  but  St. 
Hedwig's  church  is  better  attended.  The  American  Chapel,  built  by 
the  efforts  of  Mr.  Whright,  an  American  minister  to  the  Prussian 
court,  a  devout  Methodist,  is  still  occupied  and  attended  by  travelers 
of  the  American- English  type. 

The  annual  exhibition  of  pictures  in  the  academy,  the  many  fine 
concerts,  the  treasures  in  the  old  Museum,  the  Royal  Library,  the 
palaces,  and  the  lovely  drives  along  -'Unter  den  Linden,"  are  only 
mentioned  to  show  what  Berlin  does  contain  in  the  way  of  sights  and 
pleasures.  This  Unter  den  Linden,  the  street  so  well  known,  was 
planned  by  Frederick  William,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  is  now 
worn  by  many  royal  carriages  and  busy,  hurrying  crowds.  The  street 
about  the  opera  house  is  crowded  every  morning  by  the  eager  buyers 
of  tickets,  which  must  be  secured  in  the  morning. 

Surely  life  in  Berlin  can  be  made  very  attractive,  but  after  a  long 
residence  there  I  am  convinced  that  it  has  little  religious  spirit.  The 
climate  is  depressing,  the  expense  of  living  great.  Potsdam,  Sans 
Souci,  Charlottenburg,  and  many  other  places  in  the  suburbs,  are, 
historically,  most  interesting. 

It  is  more  compensating  in  Europe  to  go  from  place  to  place  with 
some  special  work  or  subject  in  view  than  to  go  for  mere  sight-see- 
ing. Your  special  work  will  bring  you  nearer  the  people.  If  your 
landlady  asks  you  what  it  is,  and  you  take  the  trouble  to  tell  her,  she 
or  some  of  her  friends  will  at  once  see  that  you  know  all  their  ac- 
quaintances who  are  engaged  in  the  same  line  of  inquiry,  and  while 
the  new  acquaintances  may  not  be;  ^socially   or  intellectually  your 


from  tbc  JBalttc  to  tbe  aouatic. 

ideals,  yet  their  conversation  will  help  you  in  the.  language  and  give 
you  many  opportunities. 

Dresden  I  only  know  through  hard  work  in  the  galleries,  although 
all  its  sights  are  familiar — the  Schloss,  Green  Vaults,  with  their  im- 
mense treasures,  the  Military  Museum,  Museum  of  Natural  History, 
the  Grand  Opera  House,  the  Frauenkirche,  Japanese  Palace,  cafes, 
coinages  and  statues  ;  yet  the  picture  gallery,  with  its  priceless  "Ma- 
donna di  San  Sisto"  of  Raphael,  is  to  most  travelers  the  starting 
point  of  interest  and  the  essence  of  Dresden  life. 

From  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon faithful  copyists  labor  in  the  gallery.  The  price  received  for 
their  work  scarcely  keeps  them  from  starving.  Togo  in  among  them 
for  a  time  and  work  and  feel  as  they  do,  enlarges  one's  sympathies, 
and  teaches  one  to  love  the  masterpieces  of  the  great  artists.  To 
the  uninitiated  in  such  matters  it  may  be  well  to  explain  that  before 
the  permission  is  given  to  copy  a  picture  in  any  of  the  European 
galleries,  a  good  deal  of  red  tape  must  be  looked  after,  especially 
in  Germany.  The  director  demands  a  specimen  of  the  applicant's 
work,  which  must  be  a  study  from  nature,  either  figure  or  landscape 
or  still  life.  It  is  with  considerable  trepidation  that  the  office  of  the 
"Herr  Director"  is  entered.  If  the  applicant  is  successful,  he  or 
she  comes  out  with  an  elaborate  paper  containing  the  agreement,  the 
name  of  picture  to  be  copied,  the  number,  room,  &c,  with  the  di- 
rector's name  and  the  seal  attatched.  One  of  the  gallerie  diener, 
as  they  are  called  in  Germany,  takes  you  under  his  care,  arranges 
an  easel,  a  piece  of  carpet,  a  rest-stick  and  table.  You  are  recog- 
nized among  the  copyists,  and  the  hat  of  every  gallerie  diener  is 
raised  at  your  approach  or  departure.  When  you  have  finished,  the 
inspector  is  allowed  to  criticise  your  work.  You  must  pay  the 
diener  who  has  waited  upon  you  some  trink  geld,  or  a  fee,  as  we 
would  express  it.  At  noon  you  can  eat  your  cold  lunch,  in  com- 
pany with  the  other  copyists,  in  front  of  a  Raphael  or  a  Correggio,  a 
Titian  or  a  Rubens,  scrutinize  its  merits  or  laugh  at  its  blunders,  or 


tfrom  tbe  Baltic  to  tbe  HDiiatic. 

speculate  on  the  old  master's  methods  of  using  their  pigments,  with- 
out being  amenable  to  any  code.  An  artist's  life  is  a  life  of  independ- 
ence of  thought,  at  least.  Many  of  these  copyists  spend  their  afternoons 
in  sketching,  thus  establishing  their  originality  and  emancipating 
themselves  from  servile  observance  of  other  men's  methods.  In 
company  with  these  plodding,  intelligent  artists,  I  have  spent  many 
delightful  hours  sketching  in  the  "Alt  Market,"  or  the  Zwinger,  or 
at  Sans  Souci  or  Charlottenburg.  * 

I  have  often  wondered  if  the  little  Greek  church  in  the  suburbs  of 
Dresden  was  as  attractive  to  all  travelers  as  to  me.  It  is  surrounded 
on  one  side  by  golden  wheat  fields,  with  red  poppies  and  dark  blue 
corn  flov/ers  growing  among  it.  Its  gilded  dome,  semi-domes,  and 
minarets,  shine  like  blazing  lights  against  the  dark  blue  sky.  The 
style  is  such  pure  Byzantine  and  the  inside  so  perfect  in  its  appoint- 
ments, and  yet  so  simple  ;  the  service  conducted  in  so  solemn  and 
devout  a  spirit,  there  seems  to  be  much  to  impress  the  looker-on. 
There  are  no  seats.  On  one  side  stand  the  women  and  on  the  other 
side  the  men,  and  before  the  altar  the  patriarch,  or  priest.  The 
service  is  short,  consisting  almost  entirely  of  singing  by  the  men  and 
boys,  without  the  aid  of  an  instrument.  When  the  plate  is  passed 
for  the  collection  it  contains  a  roll  of  bread.  Every  Russian  is  obliged 
to  take  the  sacrament  once  a  year ;  the  priests  take  it  every  Sunday, 
and  the  congregation  at  will.  Their  belief  that  the  Holy  Ghost  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Father,  and  not  from  the  Father  and  Son,  seems  to  be 
the  most  essential  difference  in  creed  between  the  English  Church 
and  the  Greek. 

A  summer  in  the  Harz  Mountains,  taking  in  Weimar  and  Eisenach, 
and  the  "Wartburg."  is  a  charming  experience.  To  find  out  that 
one   can  live   in   this  age  in  so  interesting  a  retreat  as  Weimar,  for 

*  My  husband  had  left  me  in  Dresden  during  the  summer  of  1878  while  he 
went  to  Servia  and  Bosnia— a  trip  afforded  him  from  the  London  Daily  News 
(for  which  he  was  the  Berlin  correspondent,)  out  of  courtesy  for  his  able  work 
during  the  Berlin  Congress  See  page  XXVI,  Biographical  Sketch,  History  of 
Prussia;  Vol.  IV. 


from  the  Baltic  to  tbe  Bortatic. 

twenty  dollars  a  month,  gives  back  some    of  the   simplicity  to   Ger- 
man life. 

To  a  student  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  Wielind  and  Herder,  no  spot 
offers  more  pleasure  than  the  quiet,  old  streets  and  groves  and 
houses  of  V/eimar.  A  mere  drive  through  the  park,  passing  Goethe's 
summer  house  and  on  out  to  "Tiefert,"  where  the  Grand  Duchess 
Amelia  held  her  little  court,  and  the  open  air  theater  attracted  a 
charming  coterie  to  listen  to  Goethe  or  Schiller  in  some 
representation,  re-awakens  the  genius  of  the  times  and  arouses  the 
appetite  of  the  traveler  for  more  acquaintance  with  the  place.  The 
next  drive  or  stroll  through  the  park  will  prove  that  every  stone  con- 
tains some  rhyme,  and  every  bench  some  association  with  those 
great  men.  There  is  a  line  to  Frau  Von  Stein  in  the  garden  of 
Goethe's  country  house,  an  elegy  engraved  on  the  stone  as  one 
ascends  to  the  Roman  house  in  the  park.  The  front  approach  to 
this  house  is  not  so  attractive,  but  the  back  is  a  fascinating  place. 
It  contains  on  the  first  floor  an  open  room  with  round  table  and 
benches,  where  the  Duke  and  his  poets  sat  for  hours,  looking  over 
the  old  stone  steps  into  the  park.  A  short  stroll  from  there  brings 
one  to  the  large  open  space,  in  the  middle  of  the  park,  which  was 
laid  out  by  Goethe,  and  represents  precisely  the  dimensions  of  St. 
Peter's  in  Rome.  The  immense  ground  plot  of  that  church  is  here 
to  be  recognized  more  definftely  than  when  one  stands  under  its 
dome. 

The  grand  ducal  palace  at  Weimar  contains  one  unique  room, 
while  all  the  others  are  handsome.  The  one  which  differs  from 
similar  palatial  apartments  is  frescoed  with  scenes  from  the  works  of 
Weimar's  great  poets.  The  halls  are  silent  and  one  longs  to  see 
little  fat  Karl  August  step  out  of  a  saal  or  the  Duchess  Amelia 
greet  Goethe  or  Schiller  on  the  stairway  as  in  days  of  yore.  Mr. 
Lewis,  in  his  life  of  Goethe,  portrays  such  scenes  with  a  graphic  pen. 

In  1832  the  house  in  the  Goethe-platz  was  left  vacant  by  its  great 
occupant.       Its    art    treasurers,  its    library,   its  various   collections, 


fxom  tbe  Baltic  to  tbe  Botiatic. 

(showing  how  comprehensive  Goethe's  mind  was,  and  how  many 
things  he  had  investigated),  were  abandoned,  as  all  human  efforts 
must  be  abandoned,  when  the  silent  messenger  calls  the  soul  into 
the  presence  of  its  Great  Creator,  If  self-denial  is  required  of  those 
on  earth  who  hope  to  enter  into  His  rest,  then  who  can  answer  for 
Goethe  ?  But  surely  the  choir  of  angels  in  "Faust"  sing  beautifully 
of  it. 

This  house  still  stands  as  he  left  it,  and  is  shown  every  Friday 
afternoon  to  visitors.  It  has  been  occupied  by  his  nephew  for 
years. 

The  church  in  which  Lucas  Cranach's  great  picture  is  to  be 
seen,  and  in  which  Herder  preached,  is  a  cold,  heartless  structure 
to  a  stranger,  but  its  very  stones  and  walls  must  respond  to  the 
prayers  of  the  old  inhabitants.  The  brunnen  or  town  well,  in  front 
of  Lucas  Cranach's  house,  when  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  peasants 
offers  a  genre  picture  for  an  artist.  The  picture  gallery  is  new  and 
good.  A  large  fresco  representing  Weimar  celebrities  is  in  the 
front  entrance.  Bettina  Von  Arnim  is  the  only  woman  in  the  group. 
Perhaps  her  correspondence,  which  is  by  many  considered  spurious, 
will  make  the  artist  regret  that  he  has  given  her  so  important  a  posi- 
tion in  this  fresco.  To  take  an  early  breakfast  in  a  pension 
overlooking  some  historic  grounds,  then  spend  the  morning  in  the 
gallery  and  the  afternoon  in  the  park,  and  the  evening  at  the  concert, 
is  about  the  happiest  program  one  can  follow  in  a  small  German 
town. 

Eisenach,  the  capital  of  Saxe-Weimar,  a  town  of  10,000  inhabi- 
tants, will  always  remain  associated  with  Martin  Luther.  It  is  the 
principal  town  in  the  Thuringian  forest.  The  old  "Wartburg,"  one 
and  a  half  miles  south  of  the  town,  is  famous  for  its  architecture  and 
history.  Martin  Luther,  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  who  rescued  him, 
and  earlier  the  saintly  Elizabeth  and  her  cruel  husband,  are  only  a 
few  names  which  are  associated   with   it.      Of  course   the  story  of 


from  the  asaittc  to  tbc  lunatic. 

the  Elector  of  Saxony  rescuing  Luther,  after  the  Diet  of  Worms,  is 
well  known.  Yet  who  can  resist  dwelling  upon  this  bold  character 
of  the  period.  After  the  Pope's  excommunication  Luther  defies  all 
threats  and  starts  out  on  his  return  journey,  with  the  Emperor's 
promise  of  a  safe  conduct  ;  the  decree  for  arrest  follows  closely 
every  step.  What  a  picture  !  to  have  these  armed  knights  attack 
him  and  carry  him  prisoner  to  the  old  Wartburg.  Then  to  discover 
afterward  that  a  friend's  hand,  and  not  an  enemy's  had  done  this 
thing.  There  he  remained  ten  months,  and  there  still  remain  the 
traces  on  the  wall  of  the  ink  he  threw  at  the  devil.  Perhaps  the 
chapel  where  he  preached  on  Sundays,  is  a  more  becoming  and 
decorous  place  to  associate  him  with  than  this  little  room,  always 
pointed  out  by  the  sensational  guide. 

The  Wartburg  has  been  so  beautifully  renovated  of  late,  (at  the 
expense  of  the  government.)  it  is  really  worth  a  second  visit  to  those 
who  may  have  seen  it  years  ago.  The  banquet  hall  is  certainly 
superb,  and  the  St.  Elizabethengang,  with  its  beautiful  frescoes  and 
long  narrow  proportions,  almost  enables  one  to  see  the  good  woman 
walking  up  and  down  with  her  prayer-book,  in  deep  meditation,  before 
starting  out  through  the  forest  with  her  attendants,  laden  with 
provisions  for  the  poor.  It  is  told  that  once,  when  her  liege- 
lord  met  her,  and  inquired  what  she  had  there  (he  had  strictly 
forbidden  her  taking  things  to  the  poor),  she,  with  legendary  faith, 
opened  the  bundle  and  forthwith  the  bread  became  roses. 

Taking  your  faithful  donkey  which  has  brought  you  up  the  hill,  and 
your  Wartburg  album  collection  of  photographs,  you  find  yourself 
soon  wandering  through  the  lovely  and  fantastic  Annathal,  and 
finally  resting  near  the  depot  at  Eisenach.  There  the  untiring  finger 
of  your  old  guide  points  to  Fritz  Reuter's  house,  and  at  last  to  his 
own  little  bill,  which  he  has  carefully  prepared  and  which  he  expects 
you  as  carefully  to  pay.  Never  goes  money  from  your  pocket  more 
liberally. 

The   Harz  Mountains,  their  legends  and  songs,  have  been  so  often 


tfrom  tbe  Baltic  to  tbe  BOrfatic. 

written  of  there  is  danger  of  stupid  repetition  if  one  goes  over  the 
ground. — Reprinted  from  The  Chautauquan,  Meadtnlle,  Pa.,  by 
courtesy  of  Theodore  L.  Flood,  editor  and  publisher. 


L£ 


from  tbe  Baltic  to  tbe  astatic. 


[Concluded.] 

Travelers  are  like  conchologists,  vying  with  one  another  in  picking 
up  different  shells,  and  herein  lies  the  unending  interest  of  their  rec- 
ord. 

In  the  roundabout  route  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Adriatic  and 
Mediterranean,  Cassel,  the  electorate  in  former  years  of  Hesse-Cas- 
sel,  afforded  a  most  suggestive  visit.  To  be  sure,  its  history  is  not 
altogether  pleasant  to  an  American,  for  the  fact  that  the  old  elector 
hired  his  troops  to  England  to  fight  us  during  the  Revolutionary  war, 
is  a  not  a  savory  bit  of  German  history.  Even  Frederick  the  Great 
saw  the  meanness  of  it,  for  when  he  heard  they  were  to  take  their 
route  to  England  by  Prussian  roads,  he  sent  word,  "if  they  did  so,  he 
would  levy  a  cattle  tax  on  them."  Perhaps  some  of  the  money  paid 
by  England  at  that  time  was  laid  up  in  the  public  treasury  and  ex- 
pended afterward  upon  the  extravagant  ornamentation  of  the  grounds 
of  the  elector's  summer  residence,  "Wilhelmshohe."  The  palace  is 
in  itself  one  of  the  most  magnificent  in  Europe.  Above  the  cascades  in 
front  of  it  is  the  highest  fountain  on  the  continent.  "One  stream, 
twelve  inches  in  diameter,  is  thrown  to  the  height  of  two  hundred  feet. 
The  colossal  Hercules  which  crowned  the  summit  of  this  artificial 
grandeur  was  thirty  feet  high,  and  the  cascades  are  nine  hundred  feet 
long.  The  whole  arrangement  is  said  to  have  kept  two  thousand 
men  engaged  for  fourteen  years,  and  to  have  cost  over  ten  million 
dollars  !"  Jerome  Napoleon  occupied  this  palace  of  Wilhelmshohe 
when  he  was  king  of  Westphalia. 

A  walk  of  three  miles  under  the  straight  and  narrow  road  shaded 
by  lime  trees,  leads  one  back  to  Cassel,  after  this  visit  to  Wilhelms- 
hohe. The  town  is  beautifully  situated  on  either  side  of  the  river 
Fulda,  and  has  a  population   of  thirty-tv/o  thousand.     The  beautiful 


from  Ibe  Baltic  to  tbc  BDrtatic. 

Terrace  overlooking  the  auegarten,  crowned  by  its  new  picture  gallery, 
offers  as  delightful  promenades  as  the  celebrated  Dresden  Terrace. 
The  strains  of  sweet  music  coming  up  from  the  auegarten  (meadow) 
while  one  is  looking  at  the  beautiful  Rembrandts  and  Van  Dykes  in 
the  gallery,  give  the  enchantment  which  one  never  fails  to  find  in  a 
German  town.  Napoleon  carried  away  many  of  the  most  valuable 
pictures  from  the  Cassel  gallery  —but  it  is  redeemed  from  the  num- 
ber of  horrible  Jordaens  and  Teniers  by  possessing  the  "pearl  of  Rem- 
brandts," a  portrait  of  "Saskia,"  his  wife. 

Chemical  products,  snuff  included,  are  manufactured  in  Cassel, 
and  it  is  quite  a  wide-awake  business  place — the  old  town  preserved 
for  picturesque  effect,  and  the  new  town  building  up  for  enterprising 
manufacturers. 

Leaving  Cassel  any  day  at  one  o'clock,  one  can  reach  Coblenz  at 
half-past  seven  in  the  evening,  and  the  Bellevue  Hotel  will  shelter 
one  delightfully  for  the  night,  provided  a  room  on  the  hof,  or  court, 
is  not  given.  Four  hundred  feet  above  the  river  at  Coblenz  stands 
the  old  fortress  of  "Ehrenbreitstein."  How  fine  its  old  gray  stone 
and  its  commanding  situation  is  !  No  wonder  Auerbach,  the  novel- 
ist, in  his  "Villa  on  the  Rhine,"  devoted  so  many  pages  to  Ehren- 
breitstein, the  Gibraltar  of  the  Rhine.  "It  cost  the  government  five 
million  dollars.  With  four  hundred  cannon,  and  capacity  to  store 
provisions  for  ten  years  for  eight  thousand  men  in  its  magazine,"  well 
may  it  scorn  attacks  "as  a  tempest  scorns  a  chain." 

Instead  of  driving  up  to  see  this  monstrous  fortress,  one  may  pre- 
fer to  wander  into  St.  Castor's  Church  in  the  early  morning,  and, 
like  a  devout  Catholic,  kneel  and  pray.  It  may  be  more  restful  to 
thus  "commune  with  one's  own  heart  and  be  still,"  than  to  keep  up 
a  perpetual  sight-seeing.  Charlemagne  divided  his  empire  among 
his  grandchildren  in  this  very  church.  It  dates  to  the  ninth  century, 
and  is  one  of  the  best  specimens  of  Lombard  architecture  in  all  the 
Rhine  provinces.  Coming  out  in  the  morning  about  ten  o'clock,  the 
sun  will  light  up  the  severe   outlines  of   the  great  old  Ehrenbreitstein 


ffrom  tbe  Jfialttc  to  tbe  Bortatic. 

across  the  river.  Luther's  celebrated  hymn,  uEin  feste  Burg  ist 
unser  Gott"  (A  mighty  fortress  is  our  God),  comes  inevitably  to  the 
mind. 

We  left  Coblenz  at  ten  o'clock  on  the  steamer  "Lurlei"  for  Mainz. 
This  romantic  name  for  our  boat,  the  waters  we  were  plying,  St. 
Castor's  Church  on  the  left,  and  Ehrenbreitstein  on  the  right, 
brought  a  strange  combination  of  war,  romance  and  religion  to  the 
mind.  The  only  prosaic  moment  which  seized  me  was  in  passing 
the  Lurlei  Felsen  on  the  Rhine — when,  instead  of  remembering 
Lurlei,  I  exclaimed  to  my  companion,  "Oh  !  here  is  where  they 
catch  fine  salmon  !"  Rheinstein  was  to  my  mind  the  most  beauti- 
ful and  picturesque  castle  of  all,  and  being  owned  by  the  Crown 
Prince  is  kept  in  becoming  repair.  The  "panorama  des  Rheim" 
is  a  troublesome  little  companion,  for  it  leaves  one  not  a  moment  for 
calm  enjoyment  and  forgetfulness,  constantly  pointing  out  the  places  of 
interest  and  crowding  their  history  and  romance  upon  one. 

The  Dom  at  Mainz  is  a  curious  study  for  an  architect — combining 
as  it  does  so  many  styles  and  containing  such  curious  old  tombs. 

Frankfort,  the  birthplace  of  Goethe,  and  the  native  place  of  the 
Rothchilds  family,  has  too  much  history  to  detail  in  an  article  like 
this.  When  it  was  a  free  city  it  had,  and  it  still  retains,  I  be- 
lieve, the  reputation  of  being  the  commercial  capital  of  that  part  of 
Germany. 

Goethe  preferred  little  Weimar  for  the  development  of  his  poet- 
ical life.  His  father's  stately  house  in  Frankfort,  still  to  be  seen, 
was  not  equal  to  his  own  in  Weimar. 

But  let  us  leave  the  Main  and  the  Rhine  and  look  up  Nuremburg 
and  Munich  before  we  follow  our  southern  course  to  the  Adriatic. 
An  erratic  journey  this,  but  have  we  not  found  some  shells  which  the 
other  conchologists  overlooked  ? 

Nuremberg  S2ems  to  have   lost  more  in  population  than  any  Ger- 
man  city  we  know  of.     Having   once   numbered    100,000,   it  now 
claims  only  55,000.     It  is  a  curious  fact  that  Nuremberg  toys  which 


from  tbc  Baltic  to  the  HC»riattc. 

were  so  celebrated  formerly  have  been  surpassed  In  this  country,  and 
now  American  manufactures  in  this  line  are  taken  to  Nuremburg 
and  actually  sold  as  German  toys.  This  was  told  me  by  a  gentle- 
man interested  in  the  trade.  Buy  a  lead  pencil  in  Nuremburg  if 
you  want  a  good  article  very  cheap — perhaps  you  can  learn  to  draw 
or  sketch  with  one,  being  inspired  by  the  memory  of  Albert  Durer. 

Nuremberg  is  Bavaria's  second  largest  city,  and  attracts  more 
foreigners  or  visitors  than  Munich,  perhaps,  yet  to  the  mind  of  the 
Bavarian,  Munich  is  Bavaria,  as  to  the  Frenchman,  Paris  is  France, 
and  to  the  Prussian,  Berlin  is  Prussia  !  No  traveler  can  be  con- 
tented, however,  without  some  time  in  Nuremberg,  although  I  dare 
say  many  go  away  disappointed.  The  old  stone  houses  with  their 
carved  gables,  the  walls  and  turrets,  St.  Sebald  Church,  and  the 
fortress  where  Gustavus  Adolphus  with  his  immense  army  was  be- 
sieged by  Wallenstein,  are  things  which  never  grow  tedious  to  the 
memory.  In  this  fortress  now  they  keep  the  instruments  of  torture 
used  in  the  middle  ages  to  extract  secrets  from  the  criminal  or  the 
innocent,  as  it  might  chance  to  be.  A  German  in  Berlin  laughingly 
told  me  when  I  described  the  rusty  torturous  things,  that  they  were 
all  of  recent  manufacture,  and  were  not  the  genuine  articles  at  all  ! 
But  new  or  old,  genuine  or  reproduced,  they  make  one  shudder  as 
does  Fox's  "Book  of  Martyrs."  I  know  of  no  church  in  Germany 
more  worthy  of  study  than  St.  Sebald's.  in  it  one  finds  a  curious 
old  gold  lamp,  which  swings  from  the  ceiling  about  half  way  down 
one  aisle  of  the  church.  It  is  called  die  ewige  la mp$  because  it  has 
been  always  burning  since  the  twelfth  century.  It  is  related  of  one 
of  Nuremberg's  respectable  old  citizens  that  he  was  returning  in  the 
darkness  to  his  home,  and  finally  almost  despaired  of  finding  his 
way,  when  a  faint  light  from  the  St.  Sebald's  Church  enabled  him  to 
arrive  in  safety  at  his  own  door.  He  gave  a  fund  to  the  church 
afterward  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  there  a  perpetual  light.  When 
the  Protestants  took  St.  Sebald's,  as  they  did  so  many  Catholic 
churches  in   Germany   after   the    Reformation,   the    interest  on   this 


ffrom  tbe  ^Baltic  to  tbe  Borlatic. 

money  which  the  old  man  gave  had  still  to  be  used  in  this  way  ac- 
cording to  his  will.  So  die  ewige  lampe  still  swings  and  gives  its 
dim  light  to  the  passer-by  at  night.  Our  American  Consul  told 
a  characteristic  story  of  an  American  girl  and  her  mother,  whom  he 
was  escorting  about  Nuremberg.  They  were  in  St.  Sebald's  Church, 
and  he  related  the  story  of  the  lamp  as  they  stood  near  it.  Under- 
neath stands  a  little  set  of  steps  which  the  old  sexton  ascends  to 
trim  the  lamp.  "Oh!  '  said  this  precocious  American  girl,  "I  shall 
blow  it  out,  and  then  their  tradition  that  it  has  never  been  out  will  be 
upset."  So  she  climbed  the  steps  fast,  and  as  she  was  about  to  do 
this  atrocious  thing  our  Consul  pulled  her  back,  and  said  she  would 
be  in  custody  in  an  hour,  and  he  would  not  help  her  out.  The 
mother  merely  laughed,  and  evidently  saw  nothing  wrong  about  the 
performance.  It  is  just  such  smart  acts  on  the  part  of  American 
girls  abroad  which  induced  a  man  like  Henry  James  to  write  novels 
about  them.  The  fine,  intelligent,  self-poised  girls  travel  unnoticed, 
while  the  "Daisy  Millers"  causes  the  opinion  so  often  entertained 
about  all  American  girls  by  foreigners,  that  they  are  "an  emancipated 
set"  to  still  exist  in  a  large  degree. 

It  was  our  good  fortune  while  in  Munich  to  board  with  most 
agreeable  people.  The  Herr  Geheimrath  (privy  counselor)  had  re- 
tired from  active  life  of  one  kind,  to  enjoy  the  privilege  of  being  an 
antiquarian  and  art  critic.  He  had  his  house  full  of  most  valuable 
and  curious  treasures.  The  study  of  ceramics  was  his  hobby,  and  all 
kinds  of  porcelain,  and  earthenwares  of  the  rarest  kinds  were  stand- 
ing around  on  his  desk,  on  cabinets  and  on  the  floor.  He  edited 
Dir  Wartburg,  a  paper  which  was  the  organ  of  Munchener  Alter- 
tJi  i im-Verein,  and  wrote  weekly  articles  Ueber  den  Standpunkt 
utiserer  heutigen  Kit  ad.  His  wife  was  formerly  the  hof  singerin 
(court  singer)  at  the  royal  opera  in  Munich,  but  was  then  too  old  to 
continue  Every  Saturday  evening  she  would  give  a  home  concert, 
and  would  sing  the  lovely  aria  from  the  "Freischutz,"  or  Schumann's 
songs 


ffrcm  the  JSaltic  to  tbe  BMl;Uic. 

St.  Petersburg  never  looked  whiter  from  snow  than  did  Munich 
that  winter.  The  galleries  were  cold,  but  the  new  and  old  Pinakothek 
were  too  rich  to  be  forsaken.  Fortunately  the  new  building  was  just 
across  the  street  from  the  Herr  GeheimratW a.  If  it  had  only  been 
the  old  Pinakothek  I  found  myself  continually  saying,  for  who  cares 
for  Kaulbachs.  and  modern  German  art,  compared  with  the  rich 
Van  Dykes,  the  Rubens,  the  Durers,  and  the  old  Byzantine  school  ? 
I  should  say  the  Munich  gallery  is  superior  to  the  Dresden  in  num- 
bers, but  not  in  gems  But  they  have  fine  specimens  from  the 
Spanish,  the  Italian,  and  German  schools. 

The  Glyptothek  is  Munich's  boast.  There  is  a  stately  grandeur 
in  this  building  that  suggests  Greece  and  her  art.  On  a  frosty 
morning,  to  wander  out  beyond  the  Propylasum  and  enter  through 
the  great  bronze  door  of  the  Glyptothek  one  feels  like  a  mouse 
entering  a  marble  quarry.  I  presume  there  is  no  such  collection 
of  originals  in  any  country  but  Italy.  Ghiberti,  Michaei  Angelo, 
Benvenuti,  Peter  Vischer,  Thorwaldsen.  Canova.  Rauch.  Schwan- 
thaler,  are  all  represented  by  original  works.  But  it  needs  a  warm 
climate  to  make  such  a  collection  of  statuary  altogether  attractive 

Going  from  Germany  to  Italy,  one  takes  the  "Brenner  Pass," 
generally,  over  the  Alps — the  oldest  way  known,  and  used  by  Hanni- 
bal. After  winding  around  the  side  of  these  snowy  peaks,  and  being 
blinded  by  the  mists  enveloping  the  landscape,  trembling  with  ad- 
miration or  fear,  as  the  case  may  be,  a  glimpse  of  sunny  Italy  is 
most  encouraging. 

To  reach  the  Adriatic  and  Venice  is  enough  earthly  joy  for  some 
souls.  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  felt  so  ;  and  all  people  feel  so, 
perhaps;  Henry  James,  W.  D.  Howells,  M.  Taine  and  others  give 
themselves  up  to  Venice,  and  write  about  her  until  she  becomes 
identified  with  their  reputation.  Fantastic,  capricious  Venice — 
"Bride  of  the  Adriatic." 

Now    comes    Verona.       Juliet's    tomb  is  a  deception — a  modern 


fvom  tbe  jBaltic  to  tbe  Boriattc. 

invention;  but  the  house  of  Juliet's  parents  (the  Capuletti),  an 
old  palace,  stands  as  it  did  in  the  days  when  Shakespeare  represents 
its  banqueting  halls  and  good  cheer. 

You  will  be  surprised  to  hear  that  the  Italian  gentlemen  wore  fur 
on  their  coats.  They  were,  I  imagine,  traveled  gentlemen,  for  the 
genuine  Italian,  whether  count  or  beggar,  has  a  cloak  thrown  over 
his  shoulder  in  bewitching  folds.  When  he  pulls  his  large  felt  hat 
over  his  splendid  eyes  so  that  it  casts  a  dark  shadow  on  his 
mysterious  face,  and  stands  in  the  sunshine,  he  looks  picturesque 
indeed.     Verona  is  more  Italian  in  appearance  than  Florence. 

The  principal  street  in  Florence  runs  along  either  side  of  the  river 
Arno,  and  is  crowded  for  some  distance  with  little  picture  and  jewelry 
shops  but  farther  on  toward  the  ca seine,  or  park,  the  street  widens,  and 
is  enriched  with  handsome  buildings,  most  of  which  are  hotels.  This 
drive  to  the  cascine  and  the  grand  hotel  was  made  when  Victor 
Emmanuel  allowed  the  impression  to  exist  that  Florence  would  re- 
main the  capital  of  Italy.  This  drive  is  thronged  with  carriages 
about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  It  was  here  I  remember  to 
have  had  the  carriage  of  the  Medici  family  pointed  out  to  me. 
Within  sat  two  ladies  with  dark  lustrous  eyes,  jet  hair,  and  a  great 
deal  of  lemon  color  on  their  bonnets.  The  livery  was  also  lemon 
color,  and  the  carriage  contained  the  coat  of  arms  on  a  lemon-col- 
ored panel.  The  Italians  are  very  partial  to  this  shade  of  yellow. 
The  beds  are  draped  with  material  of  this  same  intense  hue — very 
becoming  to  brunettes,  but  ruinous,  as  the  young  ladies  would  say, 
to  blondes. 

Every  one  knows  of  the  old  Palazzo  Vecchio,  which  rises  away 
above  every  object  in  the  city  of  Florence.  Its  walls  are  so  thick 
that  in  them  there  are  places  for  concealment — little  cells — and  in 
one  of  these  the  great  reformer  of  Florence,  Savonarola,  was  kept 
until  they  burned  him  at  the  stake  in  front  of  the  palace. 

"Santa  Croce"  is  the  name  of  the  church  which  contains  the 
tombs  of  Michael  Angelo,  Alfieri,  Galileo,  and  Machiaveili.      Byron, 


if  rem  the  3Caltic  to  the  aeriattc. 

moved  with  this  idea,  writes  : 

"In  Saula  Oroce's  holy  precincts  lie 

A.shes  which  make  it  holier,  dust  which  is 
Even  in  itself  an  immortality." 

Every  American  goes  to  Power's  studio  naturally  proud  of  the 
Greek  Slave.  Next  to  the  Venus  of  Milo  it  seems  the  loveliest 
study  in  marble  of  the  female  figure  But  "our  lady  of  Milo,"  as 
Hawthorne  calls  her— because  of  her  classic  grandeur — seems  to 
scorn  modern  arf. 

The  Baptistery  in  Florence  is  a  curious  octagonal  church,  built  in 
the  twelfth  century,  and  has  the  celebrated  bronze  doors  by  Ghiberti, 
representing  twelve  eventful  scenes  from  the  Bible.  Those  to  the 
south  are  beautiful  enough,  said  Michael  Angelo,  to  be  the  Gates  of 
Paradise. 

As  often  as  we  had  reflected  upon  Rome  and  her  seven  hills,  on  ar- 
riving there  the  hills  seemed  to  be  a  new  revelation  to  us,  and  the 
rapid  driving  of  the  Italians  up  and  down  the  steep  and  narrow  streets 
bewildered  us  not  a  little.  We  found  ourselves  on  the  way  from  the  de- 
pot constantly  asking,  can  this  be  Rome?  Everything  looks  so  new. 
The  houses  are  light  sandstone.iike  the  buildings  in  Paris.  We  were  in- 
formed that  this  portion  of  Rome  was  calculated  to  mislead  us,  and 
that  some  of  the  hotels  in  Rome  were  quite  like  Paris  and  New  York 
houses  :  modern  in  every  respect. 

The  next  morning,  instead  of  beginning  with  the  classic  portion  of 

Rome the  Forum,  the  Coliseum,  and  the  Palace  of  the  Cassars — 

we  drove  to  St.  Peters.  There  we  spent  four  hours  wandering 
around,  finally  witnessing  a  procession  of  Priests  and  Cardinals  in 
their  gorgeous  robes.  They  entered  from  the  right,  just  this  side  of 
the  bronze  statue  of  St.  Peter. 

The  interior  of  this  great  edifice  is  in  white  and  gold,  and  now  and 
then  there  are  wonderful  colors  coming  from  side  Chapels  with  the 
gems-  and  the  paintings  about  the  altars.  There  are  grand  propor- 
tions in  this  church,  perfect  simplicity,  and  the  pure  light  of  heaven 


2from  tbe  Baltic  to  tbe  BDtiatic. 

sends   a  beam   upon  a  golden  dove  above  St.  Peter's  tomb,  which 
radiates  in  a  thousand  streams  of  light  over  the  marble  pavement. 

it  is  almost  necessary  to  find  a  niche  in  the  base  of  some  pillar 
and  sit  there  awhile  before  plunging  into  the  immensky  of  this  superb 
building,  just  as  a  bird  gets  ready  before  darting  into  space.  But 
after  all,  the  feeling  of  immensity  which  St.  Peter's  gives  is  not  so 
grateful  to  the  religious  sense  as  the  Gothic  style  of  architecture  af- 
fords with  its  stained  glass  windows  and  deep  recesses, 

"Its  long  drawn  ai.sies  and  fretted  vaults." 
The  Renaissance  did  much,  but  it  did  not  do  all ! 

Few  ruins  impressed  me  so  much  in  Rome,  or  suggested  the 
ancient  glory  than  the  ruins  of  the  Baths  of  Caracalla.  The  mag- 
nificence of  this  building  must  have  been  unparallelled.  It  is  said 
to  have  accommodated  sixteen  hundred  bathers  at  once.  What 
would  the  old  Romans  have  thought  of  the  buildings  of  the  present 
generation  which  fall  down  or  burn  up  without  much  warning. 

The  different  arches  and  columns  of  Rome  constitute  one  of  its 
most  attractive  features.  Let  those  who  enjoy  them  climb  their 
steps  or  strain  their  eyes  to  decipher  in  a  scorching  Italian  sun  the 
dates,  the  seven  golden  candlesticks,  the  shew  bread,  and  Aaron's  rod 
on  Titus's  arch,  for  example.  The  Roman  Forum  near  by,  the  old 
landmarks  of  ancient  Rome  fasten  the  attention  for  days,  and  to  wan- 
der through  the  Capitoline  Museum  come  to  the  Stanza  del  Fauno, 
the  room  where  Rienzi  stood  and  exhorted  the  people  to  recover 
their  ancient  rights  and  the  basement  below  where  St.  Paul  was  im- 
prisoned is,  indeed,  the  realization  of  great  thoughts. 

We  saw  King  Humbert  and  the  Queen  in  a  procession  where  they 
were  driving  to  gratify  the  people,  and  we  again  saw  the  King  unat- 
tended driving  with  his  brother  through  the  grounds  of  the  Borghese 
Villa.  The  Carnival  was  forbidden  that  year  in  Rome,  but  there 
were  out-croppings  of  it  on  the  streets.  The  tinseled  finery  and  hum- 
bug of  it  seem  so  incongruous  in  ancient  classic  Rome. 

The  Pantheon  is  too  important  in  its  history  for  any  fragmentary 


tfrom  tbe  JBalttc  to  tbe  Borlattc. 

writing,  but  I  have  always  liked  the  following  paragraph  from  James 
Freeman  Clarke  concerning  it :  "The  Romans  in  this  church,  or 
temple,  worshipped  their  own  gods,  while  they  allowed  the  Jews, 
when  in  Rome,  to  worship  their  Jewish  god,  and  the  Egyptians  to 
worship  the  gods  of  Egypt,  and  when  they  admitted  the  people  of  a 
conquered  state  to  become  citizens  of  Rome  their  gods  were  admit- 
ted with  them  ;  but  in  both  cases  the  new  citizens  occupied  a  subor- 
dinate position  to  the  old  settlers.  The  old  worship  of  Rome  was 
free  from  idolatry.  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  the  others  were  not  repre- 
sented by  idols.  But  there  was  an  impassable  gulf  between  the  old 
Roman  religion  and  modern  Roman  thought,  and  Christianity  came 
to  the  Roman  world  not  as  a  new  theory  but  as  a  new  life,  and  now 
her  churches  stand  by  the  side  of  the  ruins  of  the  Temple  of  Vesta 
and  the  old  empty  Pantheon." — Reprinted  from  The  Chautau- 
quan,  Meadville,  Pa.,  by  courtesy  of  Theodore  L.  Flood,  editor 
and  publisher. 


Tbome  Xife  in  (Sermanp. 


1874-1878. 


Housekeeping  in  Germany  is  reduced  to  a  science  :  a  knowledge 
of  principles  gained  by  experiment  and  experience.  Personal  and 
domestic  expenditures  are  better  regulated  than  in  America,  for  the 
theories  of  consumption  of  capital  and  consumption  of  labor  are  more 
generally  studied.  This  is  especially  true  in  the  large  cities  where 
the  houses  are  built  to  accommodate  several  families.  Even  the 
basement  rooms  are  occupied  which  are  built  haif  above  ground 
and  half  below.  The  porter  and  his  family  live  comfortably  in  these 
rooms,  which  are  oftentimes  cheerful  and  cozy.  They  are  ever 
ready  to  serve  and  oblige  the  "herrschaften"  above.  The  massive 
front  door  opens  to  the  touch  of  a  bell  attached  to  a  rubber  tube  and 
bell,  which  is  secured  in  the  basement  of  the  front  room  where  the 
cheerful  wife  of  the  porter  usually  sits.  This  front  door  is  massive 
and  ornamental  The  plate  glass  is  protected  by  wrought  iron  in 
elegant  aresbesque  patterns  around  the  monogram  of  the  owner, 
while  the  panels  of  wood  below  are  handsomely  carved.  The  greater 
number  of  houses  are  built  of  brick,  stuccoed,  which  oftentimes  re- 
sembles stone  to  such  a  degree  that  strangers  at  first  sight  are  mis- 
led. Invariably  on  the  inside  of  the  door  one  sees  in  large  German 
letters:  "Bitte  die  thiir  leise  zu  zumachen."  People  going  in  and 
out  naturally  read  this  request,  and  while  so  occupied  let  the  door 
slam  the  louder.  There  are  seven  to  eight  and  sometimes  fourteen 
rooms  on  each  floor  of  these  apartment  houses.  If  you  are  a  for- 
eigner examining  them  with  a  view  to  renting  one,  the  -'portier  frau" 
will  accompany  you  around  exclaiming:  "how  comfortable  it  all  is  !" 


fjome  Xife  in  0ermang. 

There  is  a  salon  or  drawing  room  in  the  front,  a  large,  finely  propor- 
tioned oblong  room   with  bay  window,  frescoed  ceiling,  well  papered 
walls,  inlaid  floor      Sometimes    there   are   two   rooms  front  or  even 
more,  according  to  the  expense   of  the   building,  as  a  wide  frontage 
presupposes  much  wealth.      If.  however,  there   are  only  two   rooms 
front  one  is  the  library,  usually  with   a  small  balcony  attached.     The 
dining  room  opens  from  the  drawing  room   and   is  aiso   oblong  with 
an  alcove  and  bay  window  overlooking  the  court.     The  portier  frau 
always  explains  as  she  throws  open  the  folding  doors  between  the 
drawing  room   and  dining  room,  "how  splendid  they  look  during  a 
dinner  party."     Next  you   follow  your  guide  through  a  long  narrow 
hall,  passing  bed  rooms,  bath  room,  and  kitchen.     The  bed  rooms 
are  much  smaller  in  Germany  than  in  the  American  house,  although 
modem  innovations  in  large  cities  have  brought  them  up  to  handsome 
proportion.     But  the  genuine  German,  no  matter  how  distinguished, 
even  the  great  Goethe   himself,  preferred  the   small  sleeping  apart- 
ment opening  into  a  large  room  which  is  for  ventilation — direct  drafts 
being  considered  most  detrimental  to  health.     Mr.  Lewis  in  his  biog- 
raphy of  Gcethe  never  fails  to  express  astonishment  at  the  small  dark 
room  in  which  the   great  man  slept  and  finally  died      In  the  hand- 
some old  house  at  Weimar  the   spacious   reception  rooms  and  com- 
modious dining  room  contrast  strangely   to   the    Englishman's  mind, 
with  the  contracted  bed  room.     The  theory,   however,  is  all  right — 
for  the  German  regards  the  bed  room  as  merely   a  place  for  repose, 
and  instead  of  sitting  in  a  bed   room,  as  is  oftentimes  a  habit  with 
other  people — the  sitting  room  is  attached  to  the  bed  room.     But  as 
1  have  already  said,  in  the  modern  German  cities  there  is  no  longer 
so  much  discrepancy  between  bed  room  and  salon. 

The  severest  comment  I  ever  heard  upon  the  former,  ways,  was 
made  by  a  disaffected  German  who  came  to  this  country  at  the  time 
the  Hon.  Karl  Schurz  did,  but  who  was  not  so  successful  and  con- 
sequently a  little  embittered  with  everything — he  remarked  :  "That 
Berlin  houses  reminded  him  with  their  swell  fronts  and  elegant  draw- 


Home  %\u  in  (Bermatig. 

ing  rooms  of  the  fashion  of  wearing  embroidered  chemisettes  when 
the  rest  of  the  toilet  was  mean  and  contemptible." 

The  system  by  which  these  houses  are  rented  or  occupied  is  worth 
our  attention  since  it  has  become  to  be  a  matter  of  great  expense, 
even  in  America,  for  a  single  house  to  be  occupied  by  one  family. 
A  man  who  owns  an  apartment  house  worth  60,000  thalerswill  occu- 
py the  parterre  wohunng,  or  the  first  floor,  while  the  basement,  as 
we  have  already  explained,  will  belong  to  the  porter.  The  bel  etage 
or  second  floor,  as  in  Paris,  is  considered  the  choice  apartment  and 
rents  high,  while  the  third  and  fourth  bring  good  prices.  It  is  a  good 
investment,  for  although  the  taxes  are  heavy,  yet  the  outlays  for 
water  and  gas  are  met  by  the  renter. 

As  to  the  housekeeping  in  one  of  these  apartments  or  wohunngs — 
the  windows  being  in  casement  style  are  easily  kept  clean,  but  are 
difficult  to  drape.  The  floors  are  beautifully  inlaid  in  different  col- 
ored woods  and  waxed.  A  characteristic  German  drawing  room 
will  be  furnished  about  as  follows  :  Grand  piano,  or  upright,  if  pre- 
ferred;  Smyrna  rugs,  carved  table,  sofa  and  chairs.  The  table  re- 
moved from  the  sofa  only  far  enough  to  allow  a  stout  matron  to  pass 
in  for  her  seat  in  one  corner,  which  is  her  prerogative,  especially  if 
she  is  a  titled  lady.  The  chairs  are  arranged  around  the  table,  all  agree- 
ing to  color  and  form.  It  would  be  unjust  here  not  to  say  that  the 
modern  fads  for  bric-a-brac,  for  elegant  Oriental  hangings,  tapestries, 
and  unique  furniture  has  penetrated  the  German  mind  as  it  has  the 
English  and  American,  and  the  revival  of  house  decoration  is  appre- 
ciated in  Germany  by  those  who  have  the  means  to  investigate  the 
subject,  but  the  house  we  describe  is  "pre-assthetical"  and  stands 
for  German  taste  which  will  compare  favorably  with  the  American 
house  before  the  highly  assthetic  fever  developed.  The  dress  circle 
of  Smyrna  rug,  sofa  table  and  chairs,  is  the  center  of  attraction,  yet 
the  opposite  walls  and  corners  are  not  neglected.  Pedestals  with 
choice  bits  from  the  antique  or  a  lady's  writing  desk  with  delicate 
note  paper  ready  for  her  use,  an  embroidered   chair  for   her  service, 


tyomc  TLifc  in  (Beriming. 

a  rich  robe  for  her  feet,  make  up  the  accessories.  If  good  pictures 
cannot  be  purchased  the  German,  generally  speaking,  prefers  blank 
walls.  Steel  engravings  from  the  old  masters  are  frequently  found, 
but  seldom  oil  paintings  or  water  colors  unless  they  be  of  intrinsic 
value.  In  this  particular  Americans  can  learn  much  from  foreign- 
ers. Oftentimes  the  wood  work  of  an  American  house,  its  rugs  and 
carpets,  its  furniture,  its  silver,  china  and  glass,  will  all  be  decidedly 
above  its  pictures  in  value. 

The  arrangement  of  the  Teutonic  lady's  drawing  room  is  so  nation- 
al that  the  palace  and  the  poor  man's  house  has  the  link  of  resem- 
blance ;  for  no  m?tter  how  inferior  the  sofa,  the  table,  or  the  chairs, 
they  will  be  placed  in  relation  the  one  to  the  other,  as  we  have  de- 
scribed. This  impresses  the  foreigner  as  being  a  bit  dull,  and  the 
American  or  English  woman  living  in  Germany  avoids  all  proximity 
of  sofa  and  chairs. 

The  gemiithlichkeit,  which  may  be  translated  into  various  words 
in  our  language,  such  as  friendliness,  good  nature,  kindheartedness, 
snugness,  something  comfortable  or  even  lackadaisical,  shows  itself 
during  a  Kaffee  Klatsch,  to  as  great  a  degree  as  elsewhere.  The 
hour  of  four  o'clock  is  given  almost  invariably  to  a  sip  of  coffee  and 
good  conversation.  If  there  have  been  special  invitations  twenty  or 
more  women  appear  with  fine  work  or  knitting.  The  table  is  spread 
with  spotless  damask,  upon  which  the  Kaffee  is  served.  The  silver 
urn  is  covered  with  a  quilted  hood  to  keep  it  warm — flanked  on  either 
side  by  baskets  of  cakes.  Here  the  sipping  and  the  knitting  and  the 
gossiping  begin.  It  is  the  honr  sans-sonci  for  women — where  all  the 
ingenuousness  and  cleverness  of  the  German  mind  appears.  On 
such  an  occasion  I  remember  to  have  heard  a  German  say — "but 
how  strange  the  way  the  Americans  pay  their  physicians  Here  it 
is  so  much  a  year  whether  their  services  are  needed  or  not.  Some 
years  it  happens  to  be  sure  that  a  large  family  will  have  much  sick- 
ness, but  the  doctor  asks  no  more  than  if  there  had  been  no  sickness. 
Fifty  thalers  is  the  usual  amount  for  a  small  family.     And  in  Amer- 


,,*i 

^ 


f)ome  TLite  in  Germans 

ica  how  do  you  suppose  they  reckon  a  doctor's  visit?  And  then 
Germany  has  professional  nurses  even  in  the  smallest  places — but 
there  it  is  not  so."  Among  the  books  in  a  German  library,  unless  it 
be  the  home  of  a  gelehtre,  who,  of  course — owns  a  large  share  of 
books — the  standard  German  authors  are  to  be  found — Goethe,  Schil- 
ler, Wyland,  Heine.  Schlegel's  translations  of  Shakespeare,  Hum- 
bolt's  travels,  Hegel  and  Strauss  perchance  if  the  paternal  mind  is 
a  trifle  unorthodox — but  Martin  Luther  is  the  great  guide  to  relig- 
ious thought  among  the  Protestants. 

The  dining  room  contains  an  alcove  with  bay  windows  in  the  apart- 
ment house,  and  there  the  lady  of  the  house  sits  much  of  her  time 
engaged  in  sewing  or  reading  or  giving  directions  to  the  maid.  This 
room  has  in  addition  to  the  dining  table  and  chairs,  a  sofa,  some 
upholstered  chairs  and  two  closed  cabinets  for  damask,  glass,  silver 
and  china.  The  bed  rooms  have  two  mahogany  bedsteads,  and  the 
making  of  the  bed  is  a  mystery  to  a  foreigner.  Feathers  below  and 
above,  piilows  hid  during  the  day  under  the  covers,  and  finally  a  white 
fringed  spread  thrown  over  the  entire  mountain  in  such  a  manner 
that  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  head  from  foot.  Even  the  Queen's 
bed  room  in  the  Charlottenburg  palace  shows  this  same  manner  of 
bed.  Of  late  the  sense  of  the  beautiful  has  brought  to  light  in  the 
shop  windows  silk  quilted  spreads  and  lace  coverings,  with  corre- 
sponding materials  for  the  bureau.  A  German  lady  said  to  me  : 
"How  do  the  American  women  make  up  their  beds  ?  !  must  come 
and  learn.  But,"  added  she,  "I  should  think  they  would  perish  under 
such  thin  covers."  The  bed  room  floor  in  Germany  is  usually 
painted  with  yellow  ochre  and  varnished.  Small  rugs  before  each 
piece  of  furniture.  A  table  with  candle,  matches,  water  carafe,  is 
invariably  there.  During  the  Philadelphia  Exposition  a  German 
traveling  in  this  ■  ountry  wrote  ba<  k  to  friends  in  Berlin:  "How 
exasperating  it  is  to  be  lodged  in  rooms  with  only  a  gas  jet  in  the 
center  of  the  ceiling  and  to  awaken  mornings  with  white  walls  staring 
one  in  the  face— oh  !  for  a  candle  and  tinted  walls." 


1bomc  itte  In  (BermantJ. 

The  kitchen  is  the  German's  women  pride,  and  what  wonder  with 
its  shining  rows  of  brass  and  copper  cooking  utensils  hanging  so 
orderly  against  the  gray  wall,  and  the  beautiful  white  porcelain  oven, 
brass-doored  and  brass. knobbed.  It  is  not  surprising  that  "the  gra- 
cious lady,"  as  she  is  called,  likes  to  take  a  seat  there  mornings  and 
talk  over  the  menu  for  the  day  with  •'Frederika,"  then  unlock  the 
pantry  door  and  survey  the  clean  shelves,  all  dressed  up  in  white 
paper,  loaded  with  groceries  and  confectioneries.  What  women's 
heart  would  remain  ungrateful  at  the  sight  of  such  supplies,  such  a 
kitchen  and  so  capable  a  girl  as  white-capped,  white-aproned  Fred- 
erika  ?  It  is  indeed  an  ideal  picture,  but  one  often  and  often  seen 
in  Germany. 

Next  to  the  Dutch  stove,  the  German  oven   is  probably  the  most 
economical.      As  regards   temperature,   if  well   regulated  they  are 
rather  satisfactory.     They  are    made  of  brick  covered  with  porcelain 
tiles  and  are  built  in  with   the  wail  of  the  house.     The  cost  is  about 
seventy.five  dollars  for  those  finished  in  the  plain  white  or  cream- 
colored    tiles.      Sometimes,  however,   as    in    old    Nuremberg,    the 
majolica  tiles  are   highly  artistic   and  decorative.     In  the  Gewerbe 
Museum,  of  Berlin,  there  is  a  collection  of  old  Nuremberg  tiles  very 
curious  and   beautiful.     These  ovens  are   usually  built  in  the  corner 
of  rooms,  oftentimes  seven  feet  high.     The  fire  is  located   in   a  fur- 
nace near  the  bottom  and  the  heat  traverses  the  structure  from   side 
to  side  along  winding  passages  before  reaching  the  top,  where  a  pipe 
conveys  it  when   comparatively  cold   into   a  flue  in  the  wall.     The 
heated  mass  of  brick  continues  to  warm    the  room  after  the  fuel  is 
burned.     The  same  quantity  of  fuel  consumed  in  a  German  oven  in  a 
day  would  not  burn  longer  than   three    hours   in   an    open  grate.     In 
Northern  Germany  the   poorer  classes  burn   turf   and  charcoal,  while 
the   well-to-do   use   turf  to  mix   with  stone-coal.     Previous  to  the 
introduction  of  furnaces  wagons  of  turf  were  brought  to  the  apartment 
houses  at  a  very  early   hour — the   horses  were  unhitched  and  taken 
away.     The  attic  rooms  of  these  apartment  houses  are  divided  into 


Home  %nc  in  Gctmang. 

compartments  for  storage.  Up  these  long  flights  of  back  stairway 
one  could  see  the  sturdy  peasant  women  aged  oftentimes  carrying 
basketfull  after  basketful!  of  turf  to  store  away  for  the  "herrschaf- 
ten." 

The  fire  in  German  ovens  must  be  lighted  one  hour  before  the 
rooms  can  be  made  comfortable.  Whiie  the  fires  are  beginning  to 
burn  the  floors  are.  being  polished,  which  takes  the  hour  which  would 
be  given  in  England  or  America  to  the  cooking  of  an  elaborate 
breakfast.  If  our  Continental  friends,  however,  prefer  polished  floors 
to  gladden  their  sight  on  rising,  to  heavy  beafsteaks  to  warm  their 
stomachs,  what  reason  have  we  to  criticise  ?  Frederika  is  lighting 
not  the  kitchen  fire,  but  a  little  spirit  lamp  underneath  the  "coffee 
machine,"  or  boiler,  and  carrying  in  the  fresh  rolls  and  eggs  which 
she  has  just  received  from  the  baker's  wife  at  the  back  door,  and 
in  ten  minutes  she  will  formally  announce  to  the  gnadigen  herrn  and 
the  gnadnige\  frau  (gracious  lord  and  gracious  lady)  that  l'-fruh- 
stuck  ist  ferfyig"  (breakfast  is  ready).  The  gnadiger  herr  will 
appear  wrapped  up  in  a  heavy  morning  vrapper  (made  of  gray  cloth, 
trimmed  in  mazarine  blue)  with  newspaper  in  hand,  and  the  gnad- 
ige  frav,  will  take  her  seat  at  the  table  where  the  coffee  is  sending  up 
its  smoke  She  looks,  in  her  morning  cap  and  white  apron,  surely 
as  healthy  as  her  English  sisters,  and  much  more  so  than  the  beau- 
tiful but  frail  American  woman,  who  sts  eating  her  mutton  chops  and 
warm  muffins.  Who  shall  settle  the  question  if  doctors  disagree  ? 
Continental  Europe  has  existed  on  coffee,  eggs  and  cold  bread  and 
never  had  dyspepsia,  while  England  and  America  have  grown  fat  or 
nervous  on  the  beefsteak  and  muffins. 

The  tradition  of  the  German  washing  must  not  be  overthrown  ;  vet 
after  a  long  residence  in  Germany,  and  an  experience  of  years  in 
keeping  house  in  a  German  apartment,  I  learned  to  regard  the  ''grosse 
wasche"  as  a  necessary  development  there  of  the  apartment  system  of 
keeping  house.  For  instance,  there  is  one  common  wash-room,  and 
one  drying-room  ;  the  family  in  the  parterre  ivohung  engage   it  the 


Dome  mtc  in  <3crmang. 

first  two  days  in  the  week,  then  it  belongs  to  the  family  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  house,  so  that  weekly  occupancy  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. But  a  foreigner  can  escape  this  egregious  imposition  by  send- 
ing the  washing  out  of  the  house  every  week  and  waiting  patiently 
for  it  to  return  in  ten  days. 

I  was  asked  repeatedly  by  my  German  lady  friends,  "Where  is 
your  chest  of  linen  ?"  meaning  a  carved  cedar  chest  containing  a 
wedding  dowry  of  linen,  enough  to  last  through  four  generations, 
which  is  quite  the  thing  to  be  inspected  by  one's  intimate  friends 
even  more  than  the  trousseau.  How  should  an  American  woman 
answer  such  a  question,  or  place  herself  in  the  favorable  estimation 
of  her  good  German  friends  again  after  shocking  their  education  and 
hereditary  taste,  by  confessing  that  her  house  linen  and  damask 
were  only  sufficient  for  one  or  two  years.  There  is  a  sense  of  pride 
in  the  great  washing  of  Germany,  little  dreamed  of  by  the  general 
observer. 

A  cook,  house-girl,  or  kinderm'dchen,  and  a  butler  (dien&r)  are 
the  usual  number  of  domestics  employed  by  a  well-to-do  German 
family  where  there  are  children.  If  there  are  no  children,  a  cook 
and  diener  are  sufficient  help,  even  in  a  large  city.  In  the  country 
one  girl  is  enough.  She  is  Jack-of-all-trades,"  and  gets  poor  pay 
and  less  praise  for  her  proficiency.  Her  rosy  cheeks  are  only  found 
admirable  by  some  wandering  artist,  who  makes  a  hasty  sketch  of 
her  carrying  water  from  the  village  fountain.  Among  people  who 
keep  up  any  social  style  a  diener  in  livery  is  indispensable  He 
opens  the  door,  serves  at  the  table,  sets  the  table,  polishes  the  floors, 
does  the  errands,  carries  the  invitation,  walks  behind  the  ladies  when 
they  go  out,  or  sits  on  the  box  with  the  coachman  when  they  are 
driving.  Above  all,  he  keeps  Freoerika  in  a  good  humor  by  polish- 
ing the  doors  of  her  oven,  and  sipping  coffee  with  her  while  the 
herrschaften  are  sipping  theirs.  The  wages  of  this  diener  are  not 
large  compared  to  American  ideas  ;  he  receives,  according  to  his 
ability,  per  month,  twenty  thalers,  ten  thalers,  five,  or  even  two  and 


"fcome  Xite  in  Germans- 

a  half,  if  he  is  young,  and  has  never  served  outside  a  restaurant.     In 
addition  to  his  wages,  he  gets  good  food,  or  the  equivalent  in  money, 
which  he  generally  prefers,  for  he  can  then  eat  with  the  family  of  the 
porter  below.     A  domestic  must  understand  his  or  her  work  distinctly 
before   entering  into  an   engagement.       Each   must  have  a  book  in 
which   the   employer  can   read   the  date  of  birth   place  of  birth,  the 
occupation  of  the  parents,  the  character  of  the  employe,  the  recom- 
mendation  or  condemnation  of   the   last  employer.      This  book  is 
kept  by  the  lady  of  the  house  as  long  as  the  servant  remains  in  her 
service,  and  when   leaving,  if  the  person  has  been  faithful,  she  is 
expected  to  have  a  good  recommendation  in  the  book.      There  are 
two  classes  of  cooks   in  Germany — the   finished  cook  [die  fertige 
kochin),  and  the  cock  who  is  willing  to  do  any  kind  of  work.      Die 
fertige  kochin  is  an  educated  queen  in  her  department,  and  like  every 
autocrat,  her  power  renders  her  unaccountable  for  her  actions.     She 
prefers  to  do  the  marketing,  and  is  in  league  with  all  the  grocers  and 
butchers.     This  coalition  of  butchers,  bakers,  grocers,  and  cooks   in 
Germany    is    a    confederacy   which    threatens    the    hausfrau,    the 
baroness  and  royal  household  alike.     Socialism  !     And  who  feels   it 
more  than  the  helpless  woman  with  her  account  books  before  her 
knowing  there  is  no  remedy  if  the  cook  says,  "Meat  has    risen,  and 
the  butcher  would  not  take  less."     An  unending  task  in  a  European 
kitchen  is  dish  washing,  for  six  dozen  piates   in   serving   the   dinner 
there,  go   no  farther  than  one  dozen  in  the  ordinary  American  way. 
The  diener  is  expected  to   help  the   cook  in  this  work,  and  once  a 
week  a  schauer  frau  (scouring  woman,  or  woman  inspector),  comes 
to  help.     It  is  a  distracting  day  in  the  wirthschaft,  and  serves   as  a 
weekly   reminder  of  what  is  to  come  before  Christmas  and  Easter. 
This  schauer  frau  comes  early  in  the  morning,  tears   down  all   the 
kitchen  utensils,  takes  off  the  brass  oven  doors,   sets  all   the  copper 
kettles  and  tin  ware  in  a   row,  and  goes  to  work   scouring   them  as 
bright  as  we  would  think  necessary  for  a  spring  cleaning.     Then  she 
washes  the  windows,  scrubs  the  floors,  and   returns  with   her   fifteen 


t>ome  life  in  tfevinang. 

silver  groschen  in  the  evening  as  contented  as  a  woman  in  America 
would  be  with  a  dollar.  Christmas  and  Easter  are  the  seasons  above 
all  other  times  of  the  year  for  thorough  cleaning.  Then  the  floors 
are  so  highly  polished,  and  the  brass  knobs  and  doors  of  the  porce- 
lain ovens  made  so  brilliant  that  the  servants  go  round  in  felt  slippers 
and  old  gloves,  for  fear  of  dimming  the  luster  before  the  dawn  of 
the  sacred  days.  Christmas  is  an  expensive  season  for  the  herr- 
8ehaften — so  many  presents  expected:  the  cook,  the  diener,  the 
porter  and  the  portier  /raw,  the  lamp  lighter,  the  gas  man,  the 
butcher,  the  baker,  and  candlestick-maker,  and  above  all,  the  letter 
carrier.  Eight  and  five  dollars  are  small  amounts  for  the  cook  and 
diener.  But  we  must  remember  the  cook's  small  wages  during  the 
year  (from  five  to  twelve  dollars  is  the  usual  monthly  wages),  before 
pronouncing  the  Christmas  gift  too  much. 

Feiertage,  or  holidays  for  the  domestic  in  Germany,  are  great 
annoyance  to  the  domestic  life.  They  are  so  impcrtunant  in  their 
demands,  and  so  obstinately  disagreeable  if  not  gratified,  that  it  is 
better  for  the  family  to  go  to  the  restaurant  for  dinner  and  "eat  bitter 
herbs  where  there  is  peace,"  than  to  remain  at  home  for  "a  stalled 
ox,"  with  angry  servants  to  serve  it.  While  they  demand  so  much 
for  themselves,  they  are  easily  disappointed  if  the  herrschaftea  do 
not  celebrate  every  birthday  of  their  own.  The  extra  work  is  no 
consideration  ;  they  show  pleasure  when  extra  company  is  expected. 
Bouquets  are  placed  on  the  coffee  table  by  the  plate  of  the  member 
of  the  family  whose  birthday  has  arrived  ,  a  cake,  with  the  number 
of  candles  to  indicate  the  age  of  the  person  is  found  burning,  and 
Frederika  and  August  have  broad  smiles  on  their  faces  as  they  come 
in  and  rattle  off  some  poetry  which  they  have  committed  to  memory 
for  the  occasion,  wishing  the  person  whose  birthday  they  are  cele- 
brating gliick  and  hell. 

Dinner  parties  are  the  most  frequent  and  most  formal  entertain- 
ments in  Germany.  They  are  stereotyped,  but  the  type  belongs 
purely  to  Germany.     When  the  ladies  enter  the   room,  after  the  in- 


t>ome  Uife  in  Oermang 

troductions  they  are  invited  to  be  seated  on  the  sofa  and  chairs  of 
the  "dress-circle"  which  we  have  described.  The  gentlemen  stand 
around  the  fair  ones,  bending  or  breaking  their  backs  in  the  effort  to 
talk,  or  the  more  unconcerned  stand  off  in  groups,  until  the  hostess 
assigns  the  ladies  they  are  to  escort  to  the  table.  The  seat  on  the 
sofa  is  the  seat  of  honor,  and  if  a  lady  of  inferior  rank  has  arrived 
first  and  occupied  that  place,  she  rises  immediately  and  resigns  it 
on  seeing  her  superior  enter  the  room  ;  so  that  a  captain's  wife  will 
offer  the  seat  to  a  major's  wife,  and  a  major's  wife  to  a  general's 
wife,  and  so  on.  The  white-gloved  diener  throws  open  the  doors  of 
the  dining-room  ten  minutes  after  the  arrival  of  the  guests,  and  the 
guests  have  the  privilege  of  speaking  to  each  other  at  the  table  if  an 
introduction  has  failed  in  any  case  in  the  salon.  The  dinner  is 
served  entirely  from  the  buffet  ;  the  snowy  damask,  flov/ers  and  glass, 
elegant  porcelain  on  the  table  are  all  the  guests  have  to  feast  their 
eyes  upon.  The  meats  are  all  carved  in  the  kitchen,  and  handed 
around  by  the  butler.  A  good  menu  resembles  the  French  taste  and 
order  somewhat,  although  a  discerning  eye  will  detect  the  German 
element  in  the  following  : 

Bouillon  (consomme). 

Caviar  (caviare). 

Salmon  du  Rhin. 

Pouiets  Santes  aux  Truffes. 

Pate  de  Foie  Gras. 

Filet  de  Boeuf  Garni,  Remouladen  Sauce. 

Rehbraten,  )  0  .    ,  _ 

Petit  Pois,  \  Salad  ComP°tes- 

Butter  und  Kase  und  Radieschen,  mit  Pumbernickel. 
Cafe  and  Fruits. 

There  is  much  leisure,  much  conversation,  and  much  "toasting," 
at  a  German  dinner.  Instead  of  the  ladies  retiring  when  the  cigars 
and  coffee  are  served,  as   they  do    in   England,  the   gentlemen  and 


1bome  lite  in  Germans. 

ladies  leave  the  table  at  the  same  time,  and  upon  entering  the  salon 
each  guest  goes  to  the  host  and  hostess  and  offers  his  or  her  hand, 
saying  in  the  most  gracious  manner,  "gesegnete  malzcit"  (a  gracious 
meal).  The  guests  all  shake  hands  with  each  other  and  repeat  the 
same,  and  then  the  gentlemen  go  into  the  library  to  smoke,  and 
coffee  is  taken  to  them,  as  it  is  also  brought  to  the  ladies  in  the 
salon.  The  German  hostess  does  not  dress  for  her  dinner  parties  as 
much  as  the  English  women.  She  is  never  decollete — generally 
appears  in  light  or  black  silk,  square  neck  and  half  sleeves,  with  long 
white  gloves.  When  the  hour  of  departure  comes,  the  diener  goes 
down  to  the  street  corner,  orders  a  droschke  (cab)  for  those  who 
have  not  private  carriages,  for  one  mark  (twenty-five  cents),  the  old 
kutcher  will  drive  away  the  happy  or  weary  guest,  and  the  diener 
returns  with  a  bright  countenance  and  full  pocket,  having  received 
from  each  guest  in  the  corridor  beiow  enough  "five  silver  groschens" 
to  take  Frederika  to  many  concerts.  And  so  goes  life  in  the  "Vater- 
land." — Reprinted  from  The  Chautauquan,  Meadville,  Pa.,  by 
courtesy  of  Theodore  L.  Flood,  editor  and  publisher. 


Jit,  jtL*u**^X  fr*4u*s 


1877 


The  Vender  of  Fruits  and  Vegetables. 


(3erman*Hmerican  IboueefceepinQ. 


I  received  a  letter  from  Germany  the  other  day,  written  by  a  young 
American  woman  who  was  recently  married  to  a  German  officer. 
They  live  in  a  city  of  about  the  population  of  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  only 
distinguished  from  other  places  of  its  size  in  possessing  an  old 
cathedral,  a  water-cure  (Bade  Anstalt),  and  being  a  military  post. 
These  distinguishing  features  have  nothing  to  do,  however,  with  the 
part  of  her  letter  which  I  desire  to  reflect  upon.     She  writes : 

"I  am  so  fortunately  situated  in  domestic  matters;  I  have  really 
no  care,  the  madchen  is  so  competent  and  so  willing,  it  is  a  real 
pleasure  to  keep  house." 

Just  before  the  arrival  of  this  letter  I  had  patiently  listened  for  two 
hours  to  the  just  and  lamentable  complaints  of  an  American  house- 
keeper. 

"Six  years  ago  the  Empress  of  Germany  announced  that  she  would 
henceforth  decorate  with  a  golden  cross  every  female  servant  who 
had  passed  forty  years  of  her  life  in  the  same  family.  The  Empress 
has  been  called  upon  to  bestow  this  mark  of  her  royal  favor  893 
times.  Can  any  other  country  make  such  a  remarkable  showing  ? 
In  America  house-maids  are  apt  to  reckon  their  terms  of  continuous 
service  by  weeks  and  months  instead  of  years.  The  beginning  of 
reform  in  this  matter  is  anxiously  awaited  by  millions  of  worried 
households." 

One  of  our  distinguished  diplomats  and  scholars,  who  served  in 
Germany  as  United  States  minister,  brought  back  with  him  a  Ger- 
man diener,  or  butler.  Karl  did  well  for  a  season  ;  maintained  his 
respectful  bearing  toward  the  herrschaften  and  their  guests  until 
finally  he  announced  he  was  "discontented,"  and  the  reason  for  his 


<3cvmans:2lmcucan  IbouecUccptnfl. 

desire  to  change  places  was  that  the  herrschaften  did  not  entertain 
as  grandly  in  this  country  as  they  did  in  Germany,  and  that  the 
guests  were  not  such  fine  ladies  and  gentlemen — they  did  not  give 
trink-gelt  (civility  money).  But  the  most  heartfelt  reason  was,  he 
was  lonely.  He  missed  music,  he  missed  gemuthlichkeit,  and  fine 
and  high  titles  by  which  to  call  the  ladies  and  gentlemen.  And  then 
the  fosttage — Karl  also  missed. 

On  these  festtige  in  Germany  a  butler  or  maid  has  as  good  a 
chance  to  go  to  a  picture  gallery,  or  a  pottery,  or  a  museum,  or  a 
concert,  as  gentlefoiks  ;  and  does  not  the  knowledge  and  pleasure 
gained  at  such  places  make  them  more  cheerful,  and  intelligent,  and 
competent  to  look  at  work  not  as  a  drudgery,  but  as  something  in 
which  the  whole  human  family  is  engaged  in  one  way  or  another  ? 
Said  an  observing  maid  to  me  after  an  afternoon  in  a  picture  gal- 
gery  ;  "How  can  those  poor  artists  sit  all  day  long  with  their  feet 
on  the  stone  floor  and  copy  pictures  ?  They  look  so  tired  I  was 
glad  I  was  not  one  of  them!"  After  a  visit  to  the  Konigliche 
Porzellm  Manufactur,  in  Charlottenburg,  I  remember  once  having 
asked  "Martha"  if  she  knew  how  much  labor  it  required  to  manu- 
facture a  cup  and  saucer ;  and  I  proceeded  to  tell  her  how  the 
feldspar  found  in  the  various  tanks  of  water,  each  time  running 
through  a  sieve,  then  now  they  pass  it  between  heavy  weights  so 
that  it  comes  out  in  great  sheets  of  pliable  putty,  which  are  laid  over 
moulds,  just  as  a  piece  of  dough  is  laid  over  a  pie-pan.  When  these 
forms  are  taken  off,  they  are  carefully  finished  in  every  indentation 
by  skilful  workmen,  who  have  delecate  tools  for  the  purpose.  After- 
ward they  take  these  forms,  cups,  saucers,  plates,  vegetable  dishes. 
as  they  may  be,  and  bake  them  in  ovens  for  sixteen  hours  the  first 
time,  and  after  they  are  taken  out  they  are  glazed  and  baked  again, 
and  then  if  the  ware  is  to  be  painted  it  must  be  baked  again  ;  and 
if  gilded,  still  again.  I  ended  this  elaborate  description  all  out  of 
breath,  for  it  required  as  much  command  of  the  German  language 
as  I  had.     The  attentive  girl,   however,  relieved   my  excitement  by 


<3erman*Hmerican  Dousefceeptng. 

saying:  "Yes;  I  have  been  out  there,  gnadige  frau,  and  seen  it 
all,  and  this  is  why  I  try  to  be  so  careful  with  china."  In  the  four 
years  this  good  girl  had  lived  with  us  she  had  rarely  broken  a  piece. 
I  could  but  think  how  unlike  the  answer  "Biddy"  in  America  would 
have  given,  that  "the  kitchen  floor  was  hard  on  china."  I  have 
known  these  servant  girls  as  much  interested  in  the  collections  of 
laces  in  the  museums,  especially  the  specimens  made  by  poor  peas- 
ant women  in  different  centuries,  as  any  high-born  lady,  and  much 
more  capable  or  reproducing  specimens  of  this  industry.  The  cos- 
tumes of  the  peasants  and  the  costumes  of  the  kings  and  queens, 
and  the  furniture  used  by  the  latter,  will  attract  crowds  by  the  hour 
in  European  museums.  But  who  ever  sees  any  but  the  intelligent 
and  rich  walking  about  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  New  York, 
or  the  Academy  in  Boston.  We  do  not  care  to  interest  those  we 
employ  ;  only  care  to  see  that  they  work  well  and  as  many  hours  as 
possible.  "There  remains,"  says  a  writer  on  duties  of  contract, 
••outside  of  their  actual  service,  or  of  any  assumption  of  authority  on 
our  side,  really  limitless  fields  for  the  exercise  of  our  natural  influence 
as  their  immediate  superiors  and  friends." 

If  the  foreign  emigrants  would  inform  themselves  "how  this  com- 
plex American  machinery  actually  works"  as  Mr  Bryce  expresses 
it,  it  would  be  well  for  them.  But  it  is  only  by  rumor  of  higher  wages, 
plenty  of  ground,  liberty  of  action,  that  a  certain  class  of  foreigners 
are  attracted  to  our  shores.  If  they  could  be  instructed  as  to  what 
they  are  really  to  expect,  that  for  instance  domestics  will  find  a  dull 
gray  kitchen,  a  heavy  breakfast  to  cook,  no  open  market  with  bench- 
es where  they  can  loiter  and  talk  with  the  market  women  under  their 
red  umbrellas,  and  watch  the  lads  go  by.  Nothing  but  a  long  day 
and  a  longer  evening  in  an  uninteresting  environment,  with  different 
food  and  different  duties. 

I  recently  asked  a  Swede,  a  beautiful  girl,  if  she  did  not  find  her- 
self fortunately  situated  in  America  ?  -Not  at  all,  if  I  can  do  no 
better — my  native  land  is  far  happier,  where  father  smokes  even- 
ings and  mother  knits." 


<3erman=Bmertcan  t>oueelieeptnfl. 

There  was  no  sympathy  extended  in  that  household  to  the  domes- 
tics. 

"The  drawbacks  to  a  system  of  exquisite  equipoise"  is  ignorance  and 
unbelief  on  the  part  of  those  who  serve,  and  a  want  of  interest  and 
sympathy  on  the  part  of  those  who  employ.  Their  traditions  are 
set  aside.  Like  John  Chinaman  who  has  to  learn  that  we  even  turn 
the  screw  the  opposite  way  to  the  way  in  which  he  had  been  drilled. 
Generally  speaking  they  are  disappointed  in  their  duties,  saddened  and 
discouraged.  Wages  are  higher,  so  is  the  price  of  food.  But  with 
no  money  to  return  on  they  condense  their  lives  into  deafening 
factories,  and  talk  over  strikes.  If  they  could  be  made  to  believe 
as  Matthew  Arnold  expresses  it,  "that  those  who  live  in  America 
on  incomes  below  three  hundred  dollars  have  a  better  life  than  the 
same  people  in  Europe,  for  they  have  the  great  West  before  them, 
they  have  fruits  to  eat  and  clothes  to  wear  and  that  the_  future  of 
these  great  United  States  are  of  incalcuable  value  to  them  as  to  the 
native  born  element — "The  country,"  as  Mr.  Arnold  says  "part  of 
whose  religion  is  to  glorify  the  average  man."  A  country,  we  may 
add,  where  healthful  competition  exists  and  no  narrowing  of  individ- 
ual effort  as  yet  appears,  how  much  happier  service  they  might  ren- 
der. —  Reprinted  from  The  Chautauquan,  Meadville,  Pa.,  by 
courtesy  of  Theodore  L.  Flood,  editor  and  publisher. 


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flDen&elssobn's  <Sra\>e. 


The  accompanying  pen  and  ink  sketch  representing  the  graves  of 
Felix  Mendelssohn  and  that  of  his  sister  Fanny,  because  of  their  ex- 
treme simplicity,  will  surprise  many  as  they  astonished  me  when  on 
a  Sunday  afternoon  we  wandered  out  in  search  of  the  resting  plac  e 
of  him  whose  songs  need  no  words  We  had  both  imagined  some 
lofty  monument  would  mark  the  spot,  and  in  order  to  find  it,  it  would 
only  be  necessary  to  inquire  of  some  one  in  the  vicinity.  Pursuing 
this  plan,  to  our  utter  amazement  we  only  received  an  ignorant  stare 
from  plebeian  and  patrician.  Finally,  being  told  by  an  old  gentleman, 
"if  we  would  go  beyond  the  Canal-strasse  in  the  direction  of  the 
Belle-alliance  Platz  down  the  Schoneberger  Ufer  through  a  narrow 
street,"  we  would  come  to  a  gate  opening  into  a  cemetery,  which 
we  must  pass  through,  before  reaching  a  smaller  cemetery,  in  which 
Mendelssohn  was  buried.  After  many  efforts  we  roused  the  old  por- 
ter who  kept  the  key  to  the  latter  gate.  We  walked  rapidly  in,  ex- 
pecting to  see  something  In  monumental  art  worthy  of  the  name, 
but  the  artless  old  porter  pointed  to  a  grave  in  the  corner,  and  there, 
overshadowed  by  some  trees,  stood  the  plain  slabs  with  the  names 
of  Felix,  Fanny  and  August, Mendelssohn. 

A  curious  sense  of  the  Congruous  came  over  us  while  standing 
by  the  simple  stones  and  recalling  the  solemn  and  appropriate 
demonstration  at  the  time  of  Felix  Mendelssohn's  death,  made  in 
every  city  and  town  where  his  genius  had  been  known.  Was  it 
true  that  there  in  this  small,  unknown  graveyard  they  had  left  him  ? 
Was  it  to  yonder  small  gate  the  four  horses  in  black  accoutrements 
drew  the  carriage  containing  the  coffin  covered  with  palm  branches, 
laurel  wreaths  and  flowers  ?  And  did  the  great  choirs  and  orches- 
tras of  the  city  pass  through  with  the  grand  choral,  'Jesus  my  trust," 


/ftenDelssobn'g  <3tav>e. 

preceded  by  all  Germany's  musicians,  the  clergy,  the  officers,  pro- 
fessors, officers  of  the  army,  and  the  immense  throng  of  admirers  ? 

Felix  Mendelssohn's  character  wanted  no  principle  of  the  genuine 
Christian.  Never  was  feeling  more  sacred  and  and  profound,  ex- 
pressed in  harmonious  strain  than  he  expressed  in  his  great  oratorio 
of  "St.  Paul"  and  "Elijah,"  nor  can  the  praise  of  God  be  more 
grandly  heard  on  earth  than  the  double  chorus  of  his  XLII.  Psalm 
when  well  rendered,  or  again,  when  with  his  pious  heart  he  wished 
to  show  the  triumph  at  the  creation  of  light  over  darkness,  which 
ends  with  a  beautiful  duet,  "Therefore  I  sing  thy  everlasting  praise, 
thou  faithful  God. 

We  are  told  that  Mendelssohn  spent  his  last  days  laboring  over 
a  new  oratorio — "Christ."  It  was  commenced  during  his  stay  in 
Italy,  and  while  rambling  among  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  he  is 
said  to  dave  been  inspired  with  the  theme  for  his  work,  which  he 
hoped  to  make  his  best.  Never  was  wealth  used  more  wisely  and 
religiously  than  his.  Not  only  did  he  clothe  the  naked  and  feed  the 
hungry,  but  every  one  who  came  near  him  with  aspirations  for  an 
ennobling  life  he  advanced.  He  undertook  a  tremendous  amount  of 
labor  in  giving  concerts  in  Leipzig,  the  proceeds  of  which  were  de- 
voted to  the  statue  of  Bach.  At  first  he  undertook  to  erect  such  a 
monument  out  of  his  own  means,  "saying  that  it  was  only  right  that 
John  Sebastian  Bach,  who  had  labored  so  usefully  and  with  such 
distinguished  honor  as  cantor  at  the  Thomas  school  at  Leipzig, 
should  have  a  monument  in  the  streets  of  the  city  in  which  he  had 
lived,  as  an  immortal  spirit  of  harmony."  At  these  concerts  he 
allowed  only  Bach's  music  to  be  produced,  intending  in  this  way,  he 
said,  to  make  the  rising  generations  of  musicians  more  familiar  with 
the  works  of  one  to  whom  he  felt  under  the  greatest  weight  of  obli- 
gation, and  whom  he  is  said  to  have  resembled  in  the  severity  of 
his  studies  as  well  as  the  loftiness  of  his  aims.  But  this  is  the  ex- 
pression of  Mendelssohn's  best  friends  :  adverse  criticism  has  much 
to  say,  and  while  his  motives  were  pure  and  his  compositions  genu- 


/foen&etesobn'e  Grave. 

ine  and  vivacious,  yet  in  sublime  combinations  and  serious  themes 
Bach  and  Beethoven  can  alone  be  compared. 

Every  winter  in  Berlin  the  oratorios  of  "Elijah"  and  "St.  Paul" 
are  given  in  the  Sing-Academie.  This  old  music  hall  is  a  place  of 
memorial  scenes,  the  directorship  of  which  Mendelssohn  once  ap- 
plied for,  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  his  friends,  and  was  refused. 
The  enthusiastic  audiences  which  now  assembles  there  to  hear  his 
music  seem  to  be  as  forgetful  of  this  as  they  are  ignorant  of  the 
little  secluded  grave-yard  in  the  outskirts  of  the  city  where  his  im- 
mense throng  of  friends  and  admirers  left  him  twenty  years  ago. 

In  beautiful  imitation  of  his  noble  efforts  for  Bach's  monument 
an  appropriation  of  the  money  secured  by  the  rendering  of  his  great 
oratorios  should  be  used  to  his  own  memory,  an  idea  which  occurs 
to  the  mind  of  strangers  in  Berlin,  but  unfortunately  net  to  the 
citizens. 

Only  two  years  ago  the  Berliners  raised  a  monument  to  Goethe, 
and  Alexander  and  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt  have  just  been  recog- 
nized in  this  way.  "Tegel,"  the  grand  old  home  of  Alexander,  is 
seldom  seen  by  visitors,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  frequented  by  the 
traveler  as  Potsdam  and  Charlottenburg.  An  interesting  place,  and 
an  interesting  master  it  had,  "who  had  trod  many  lands,  known  many 
deeds,  probed  many  hearts,  beginning  with  his  own,  and  was  far  in 
readiness  for  God."  His  grave  is  just  beyond  the  house,  at  the 
end  of  an  avenue.  His  home  has  been  inherited  by  a  niece,  and  is 
kept  up  in  all  the  elegance  of  former  years,  The  grounds  are  very 
handsome,  so  densely  covered  in  places  with  magnificent  old  trees 
along  avenues  stretching  beyond  the  house  and  grave.  These  forest 
trees  are  very  rare  in  this  low  sandy  region.  After  driving  for  miles 
through  barren  land  wtth  only  occasional  forests  of  stiff  pines,  to 
come  suddenly  upon  trees  which  somewhat  resemble  our  American 
oak,  bestows  a  happy  home-like  feeling  to  the  American  who  has 
wandered  from  primeval  forests. 

The  house  at  "Tegel"  is  built  in  the  most  rigid  style,  relieved  on 


Aendel06Obn'0  ©rave. 

the  outside  by  niches  filled  with  good  pieces  of  statuary.  Within 
every  room  is  painfully  neat — the  formality  with  which  the  furniture 
is  placed  shows  evidence  that  the  owner  had  no  children.  It  is  an 
attempt  at  an  Italian  Villa,  but  seems  too  cold  and  formal  for  such  a 
climate  as  Berlin.  There  is  certainly  taste  displayed  and  cultivation 
evinced  in  the  selection  of  many  things.  The  library  is  filled  with 
books,  principally  works  of  Humboldt  and  Voltaire.  On  the  tables 
are  large  portfolios  containing  maps  and  cartoons.  The  desk  with 
the  pen  and  inkstand  remain  just  as  he  left  them.  Indeed,  there  is 
only  a  suggestion  here  and  there,  that  the  niece  is  living  and  owning 
the  place — so  still  and  so  orderly  are  the  rooms,  and  so  undisturbed 
hang  the  red  apples  by  the  house  —  and  the  house  seems  as 
silent  as  the  stately  avenue  of  oaks  that  leads  to  the  grave.  Hum- 
boldt left  a  handsome  fortune  to  this  niece,  for  he  lived  and  died  a 
bachelor. 

He  owned  many  valuable  pieces  of  statuary,  The  original  of 
Thorwaldsen's  Venus  was  purchased  by  Humboldt  with  much  price, 
it  is  said,  and  placed  in  his  collection  with  other  rare  pieces  found  at 
various  places  in  his  travels.  Among  other  curious  possessions  a 
mutilated  old  fountain  from  Pompeii  stands  in  the  hall,  The  floors 
are  tiles,  as  one  generally  finds  in  Germany,  and  the  salle  which 
contains  the  finest  statuary  suggests  Goethe's  line's  in  "Mignon." 
"Und  Marmor  Bilder  steben  and  dehen  mich  an." 

What  is  there  in  the  make  up  of  literary  men  which  prompts  them 
so  often  to  isolate  themselves  in  some  far  off  country  place  ? 
The  explanation  which  is  generally  given  is,  that  their  time  being  so 
precious  they  can  not  be  interrupted  ;  their  ideas  will  not  grow  and 
flourish  in  the  midst  of  the  talkative  world.  Emerson  tells  of  the 
literary  man  who  declared  "the  solitary  river  was  not  solitary  enough  ; 
the  sun  and  moon  put  him  out,  When  he  bought  a  house  the 
first  thing  he  did  was  to  plant  trees.  He  could  not  enough  conceal 
himself."  'Tis  worse,  and  tragic,  Emerson  goes  on  to  remark,  that 
no  man  is  fit  for  society  who  has  fine  traits.     "At  a  distance   he  is 


/focnfcelssobn's  ©cave. 

admired,  but  bring  him  hand  to  hand,  he  is  a  cripple."  "But  people 
are  to  be  taken  in  small  doses."  "Solitude  is  impracticable  and  so- 
ciety fatal."  If  more  authors  and  literary  people  would  live  as  Goethe, 
as  Macaulay,  as  Madame  de  Stael,  as  the  recent  German  novelist, 
Berthold  Auerbach,  in  the  midst  of  their  friends  or  foes  as  they  may 
chance  to  be,  hearing  the  arguments  for  and  against  them,  would 
it  not  be  better.  Goethe  wanted  to  hear  all  that  could  be  said  of 
him,  that  he  might  the  more  cleverly  understand  what  he  was,  what 
he  was  writing  for,  and  where  his  lessons  were  to  be  honored. 

Berthold  Auerbach  was  in  hearty  sympathy  with  all  about  him, 
seeing  his  friends  once  a  week  through  special  invitation,  as  well  as 
whenever  they  called,  and  observing  his  birthdays  with  a  childlike 
interest.  One  day,  we  found  him  at  home  seated  by  a 
table  which  was  covered  with  flowers,  fruits,  and  presents  of  various 
kinds.  We  at  once  knew  that  it  was  his  birthday,  and  expressed  a 
regret  that  we  had  not  come  in  with  an  offering.  "Oh,  that  does 
not  matter,  so  you  bring  yourselves  ;  the  presents  are  only  from 
those  who  did  not  come  ;  they  can  not  take  the  place  of  the  absent 
ones,  but  they  signify  love  !  and  love  is  what  we  live  for !"  Franz 
Liszt  is  another  German  who,  although  so  old.  and  one  would  think 
exhausted  from  the  voice  of  praise  and  adoration,  retains  an  intense 
longing  for  his  friends  and  society,  and  they  for  him.  When  he 
reaches  Weimar  in  the  summer,  after  his  winter  in  Pesth,  everyone 
knows  or  feels  his  presence.  The  Berliners  even  rejoice  that  he 
is  the  nearer  to  them.  We  are  glad  that  Longfellow  and  Buchanan 
Read  and  Healy,  and  a  host  of  Americans  have  felt  his  magic 
friendship,  and  watched  "his  Saturn  fingers  so  full  of  knots."  His 
Sixth  Rhapsodie  is  sufficiently  great  to  have  given  him  a  world-wide 
reputation.  Wagner,  Liszt,  Auerbach,  Knaus  and  many  other 
artists,  musicians  and  writers  of  Germany,  show  that  it  is  possible  to 
live  for  one's  friends,  while  living  also  for  fame.  But,  alas  !  in 
America,  reputation  and  success  are  coupled  with  such  secluded 
habits  and  such  insatiable  work  that  the   personal  influence  of  our 


/ISendeleeobn'd  ©rave. 

literary  and  scientific  men  is  lost  in  a  large  measure.  The  wife  of 
one  of  our  distinguished  poets,  in  speaking  of  the  state  of  society  in 
New  York  City,  said  there  had  not  been  h^d  for  years  what  one 
could  call  a  literary  coterie  ;  that  Bryant  during  his  lifetime  could 
have  held  a  salon  but  for  the  fact  that  personally  he  was  too  cold  and 
indifferent  to  devote  his  liesure  hours  to  the  light  and  easy-going 
talk  of  the  hour.  She  went  on  to  say  that  had  one  lamented  one 
lived,  he  with  his  warm  and  generou6  nature,  his  wide  and  untiring 
interest  in  others,  he  could  have  been  the  center,  the  heart  and  soul 
of  such  a  circle. — Reprinted  from  The  Chautauqua  nt  Meadville, 
Pa.,   by  courtesy  of  Theodore  L.  Flood,  editor  and  publisher. 


£be  flDotber  of  an  Emperor- 

5econJ>  EMtion.    Clotb.    50  pages,     price,  postpaid  $1.00. 


It  is  a  source  uf  gratification  to  all  lovers  of  a  better  literature  to 
note  that,  in  a  brief  time,  the  charming  biographical  sketch  first 
printed  in  our  columns,  and  afterward  attractively  published  in 
booklet  form  by  Jennings  &  Pye,  "The  Mother  of  an  Emperor" 
(Queen  Louise  of  Prussia), by  Mrs. Mary  McArthurTuttle,  has  come 
to  its  second  edition.  There  are  entertaining  supplementary  arti- 
cles in  the  book,  reprinted  from  the  Chautauquan.  Their  titles, 
•'From  the  Baltic  to  the  Adriatic,"  Home  Life  in  Germany,"  "Ger- 
man-American Housekeeping,"  and  Mendelssohn's  Grave,"  will  in- 
dicate the  variety  and  interest  of  the  writing.  The  book  is  well 
supplied  with  half  tones  and  with  unique  pen  and  pencil  drawings, 
by  Mrs.  Tuttle,  who  adds  the  skill  of  artist  to  that  of  litterateur.— 
The  Western  Christian  Advocate,  Nov.  6,  1901. 

"  Here  is  the  result  of  painstaking  labor,  united  with  skill,  in  tell- 
ing a  charming  story  in  a  charming  style.  Its  vividness  is  also  in- 
creased by  sketches  from  the  author's  deft  pencil.  Her  success  in 
bringing  the  distant  and  the  past  into  the  living  present  is  worthy 
of  more  general  imitation  in  this  day  when  so  much  energy  is  ex- 
pended by  ambitious  authorship  in  telling  dreams.  The  faces  and 
facts  of  the  past  can  be  brought  to  a  beautiful  resurrection  when 
touched  by  the  breath  of  genius." — Hillsboro  Gazette,  1901. 

"Mrs.  Tuttle  has  made  a  readable  and  graceful  story  of  the  life  of 
the  Queen  from  the  most  favorable  standpoint.  The  original  draw- 
ings are  numerous  and  each  one  a  gem.  Mrs.  Tuttle  has  few  equals 
in  such  work.  As  writer  on  Art  and  Color  she  is  well  known.  She 
explains  in  her  preface  why  this  book  was  prepared,  and  it  is  a 
credit  not  only  to  her  own  taste  but  to  the  neat  manner  of  publish- 
ing. Her  husband,  the  late  Professor  Tuttle,  wrote  the  History 
of  Prussia,  and  was  a  man  of  deep  research  and  unbiased  judgment. 
— The  Dispatch,  1901. 

"Mrs.  Tuttle  is  the  widow  of  Herbert  Tuttle,  A.  M.,  L.  H.  D..  late 
professor  at  Cornell  University,  and  author  of  the  History  of  Prus- 
sia, (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.)  The  National  Cyclopedia  of  Amer- 
ican Biography  gives  a  lengthy  notice  of  both  Professor  and  Mrs. 
Tattle's  work  as  artist  and  writer."— Australian  Federation,  1901. 


cthiv  nv  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY, 


lOrn-4,'23 


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